Slate Auto Loses Direct Link to Jeff Bezos Before Production

Melinda Lewison, who heads wealth management for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has left the board of directors of Slate Auto. The American startup raised $1.4 billion in the billionaire’s name without having yet produced a single electric pickup.

The information comes from TechCrunch, which revealed on May 7, 2026 the departure of Melinda Lewison, head of Bezos Expeditions, from the board of Slate Auto, according to documents filed in Delaware, Florida and Massachusetts. Her seat was the only official trace of Jeff Bezos in this young company.

The company's factory in Warsaw, Indiana, is to produce its first pickup by the end of 2026. The departure comes barely two months after the replacement of CEO Chris Barman by Peter Faricy, former vice president of Amazon Marketplace.

Slate sold a simple promise: an electric pickup under $20,000 thanks to the U.S. federal tax credit. Yet the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act killed this credit in September 2025, and the displayed base price now revolves around $27,500, $7,500 more because of the legislation.

The rest holds up for the price: a 52.7 kWh battery for 241 km of range, or 84.3 kWh for 386 km in the large-battery version, and a payload of 635 kg. According to Carbuzz, more than 160,000 refundable $50 reservations have been collected since June 2025.

Jeff Bezos himself appears to have refocused on Project Prometheus, his $6.2 billion physical AI laboratory. In short, the product exists, the factory is being built, the money is in the bank, but the credibility of a startup sold on a name must now be carried by another standard-bearer.