Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The electric car company Lucid Motors was looking to raise money Series D in 2017. They were courting Ford as a possible investor, but Jia Yueting, who started the EV race to start Faraday Future, quietly collected about 30% of the price and actually blocked new investors.
David Stern, the extraordinary businessman and former close adviser of Prince Andrew, saw an opportunity to solve the problem: bring in Jeffrey Epstein.
“Ford to lead $400m Series D in Lucid. Big move,” Stern he wrote to Epstein in emails released last week as part of the Justice Department’s recent disclosure of 3 million documents related to Epstein. Jia “has a big financial problem” at Faraday, he wrote, and needs to “sell now to pay for his other business.”
It wasn’t the first time EV Stern’s startup implicated Epstein, and it wouldn’t be the last, according to hundreds of documents reviewed by TechCrunch.
At the time, automakers and startups, encouraged by the success of Tesla and the progress of Google’s self-driving project, jumped into electric and autonomous vehicles. And Stern was clearly hungry to capitalize on the aftermath. The documents show that they have also invested in Faraday Future and in their EV startup, the Canoo.
It is doubtful that Epstein ever invested in any of them. Lucid didn’t close its Series D until late 2018, when it raised more than $1 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Faraday eventually received a large investment from Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande in late 2017. Epstein said in a 2018 memo in Justice Department files that he had no “direct” or “indirect” interest in Canoo.
This discussion instead provides more information on the subject many connections Epstein, a sex offender, was supposed to start Silicon Valley until his arrest and death in 2019. He also provides an overview of the relationship that was not investigated in the previous report.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
| |
June 23, 2026
By the time of the Lucid emails, Epstein and Stern had been working together for nearly a decade, newly released documents show. For Epstein, Stern he was “My connection to China.” In Stern, Epstein he was “my mentor, and I do what he tells me.”
The ‘ghost’ of a merchant
Stern is a digital genius with limited knowledge of the internet before the files are released.
He is best known as the director of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace startup competition, which lasted several years until Andrew’s connection to Epstein was revealed. Andrew referred to Stern as a “ghost” inside 1 email from 2010.
Stern appears to have first contacted Epstein in 2008, according to emails released by the DOJ — just a month before the financier filed a charge of soliciting prostitution in Florida. Stern was creating a fund, called AGC Capital, to take advantage of China’s booming economy, and wanted Epstein to invest.
It is unclear how Stern was introduced to Epstein. Stern did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this story.
Stern, who is from Germany, attended the University of London and Shi-Da University in China in the late 1990s, and served as chairman of China Millennium Capital, the Chinese arm of Millennium Capital Partners, according to AGC Capital’s bio section. on the groundwhich is in DOJ files.
Stern also worked at Siemens, consulting on “Industrial Joint Ventures and Chinese State Owned Enterprises,” before joining the Shanghai office of Deutsche Bank. He founded a company called Asia Gateway in 2001 that “advised blue chip companies, Chinese businesses and the Chinese government on financial and investment strategies.”
These jobs appear to have helped Stern build relationships with powerful and wealthy Chinese businessmen, including Li Botan – the son-in-law of China’s fourth-largest leader under Xi Jinping who succeeded Xi Jintao. (Li would eventually become an investor in Canoo and Stern.)
It is unclear whether Epstein invested in AGC Capital; The financier spent the next year in prison. But Stern and Epstein kept in touch, and in 2009 Stern began to put forward some ideas.
The documents reveal a relationship that began on a regular and long-term basis, with Epstein at one point pleasures Strong due to lack of preparation for potential business.
“(I)f you want to do real business you have to be accurate and careful” every mistake is too much,” wrote Epstein. “(Y)our first grade is an F.”
One of the first big things the two men agreed on was helping the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, and his financial difficulties, according to emails.
The relationship grew over the next decade. The two men got so close that Stern was relieved to ask Epstein in 2016 to become the godfather of one of his children. (Epstein wrote that he was “excited” but declined because he “promised my daughter that I would not be anyone’s god.”)
It is difficult to say how beneficial this relationship was commercially. But between 2009 and 2019, Stern brought Epstein several opportunities in various industries.
Previously, he appeared to have died after starting a new “mystery”. money and Epstein to jointly operate Chinese businesses, which they named JEDS – the two men’s startups were merged. (Also referred to in some emails as “The Serpentine Group.”) Stern later to throw buy land in Russia, he encouraged buy the news agency Al Jazeera and take it public, they discussed buys troubled music publisher EMI, and considers acquiring a seemingly disaffected (and unnamed) submarine cable company.
And their eyes were on the banks. Stern and Epstein tried to buy Sal’s private Luxembourg bank. Oppenheim, Emails show. In 2016, he even discussed a purchase of Deutsche Bank, which had existed for years it’s done and Epstein.
Stern repeatedly revealed his high-profile business and political connections in his emails to Epstein and his associates. In February 2012, Stern he encouraged Epstein introduced Jes Staley – then head of investment bank JP Morgan – to Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim.
“I know Anwar very well,” Stern wrote. If he becomes the prime minister of Malaysia (Staley) he will clean up and can be a gold mine for JPM. (Ibrahim lost the election in 2013 but became Prime Minister in 2022.)
Stern said he did dinner with Jack Mahad a meeting planned”alone” and the President of the UAE, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and said “friends” is the grandson of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.
Go to the lights
As of 2017, Stern seems to be looking to rush to create new travel companies.
He tried to get Epstein to meet with Faraday Future founder Jia to discuss funding. It is not known if this ever happened; The company and Jia did not respond to requests for comment.
But former BMW and Deutsche Bank CFO Stefan Krause, who was brought in to save Faraday Future, directly asked Epstein in April 2017.
“Faraday Future (FF) is a good story in itself, unfortunately surrounded by a lot of noise around Jia Yueting (YT) and his other businesses (LeEco, LeMall, LeSports, to name a few). These businesses are not working, so they lost money. FF is starving,” Krause he wrote in Epstein. “A great opportunity to make a better Tesla.”
(Krause is described as a “friend” and friend of Stern’s in the text. He did not respond to a request for comment.)
It seems that the negotiations are over. Soon after, Stern promoted Lucid Motors.
In May 2017, the court reached Epstein’s box. It was launched together with a fund called Monstera that Stern was was created. “Monstera could acquire a 32% stake in Lucid at a price controlled by Yueting Jia,” one slide reads. Other emails show that Stern is expected to spend $300 million getting a share of 32%..
He to be mentioned to that like “fire selling” in emails. Monstera could be responsible or “(o)low it” “when Ford comes in.”
Ford finally release, and Lucid waited to close Series D until August 2018, when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invested more than $1 billion. (SEC filings show that a Saudi sovereign wealth fund has bought back Jia’s shares over the next several years. Lucid did not respond to a request for comment.)
When Krause left Faraday Future to start a new EV company at the end of 2017 – first called Evelozcity and later, Canoo – Stern was one of the first supporters. They contributed $1 million along with major contributions from Li, a Chinese businessman linked to the CCP, and Michael Chiang, the billionaire who runs Taiwanese electronics giant TPK. (Li’s involvement later sparked national security scrutiny when Canoo went public in 2020.)
In June 2018, Stern sent Epstein a note about the launch, to which Epstein replied: “exciting.”
But Epstein never invested in Canoo, either. However, they put powerful people in Stern’s place. Epstein email Deepak Chopra in May 2018 and told a self-help coach that “David has a new electric car in Los Angeles.” He told Chopra “they’re going to build the next generation of automation in the car.” you have to talk.
In June 2019, Epstein sent a message to Eduardo Teodorani, an Italian businessman who is the senior vice president of agricultural machinery at CNH. “My friend David Stern … has an electric car that I think you should look into before you sell it to someone,” Epstein said. Epstein as well connected Fighting with Sheikh Jabor al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, on June 29 to “hear more about your car.”
A week after sending the message, Epstein was arrested. He died in prison a month later.
It is unclear when Stern last spoke to Epstein. But in March 2019, he sent an article to Epstein titled: “Warren Buffet: Electric Cars Are Many in America’s Future.” In the body of the email, Stern he wrote: “How do we find him?”
