Slate Auto is changing CEO months before launching affordable electric cars

Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has changed its CEO months before the launch of its affordable electric truck.

Former Amazon Marketplace Vice President Peter Farsi is the new person in charge of the company, starting on Monday, Slate spokesman Jeff Jablansky told TechCrunch. Most recently, Farsi was a consultant at McKinsey and Bessemer Venture Partners. Farsi left the role at Bessemer to join Slate, according to Newsweek Reported for the first time Rent.

Slate Auto’s first CEO, Christine Barman, a longtime Chrysler veteran, is now president of the vehicle division, according to Jablanski. Barman was Slate’s first employee. The company was still a secret project called re:Car that started inside a Massachusetts-based manufacturing incubator called re:Build Manufacturing, like TechCrunch. It was first revealed last year.

Barman stood out not only because she was one of only two female executives running an American automaker, but she has become the face of the company since emerging from obscurity in April 2025. She has appeared in several promotional videos produced by Slate in the past year, including One last month It teased that the company will finally reveal the price of its basic electric truck in June.

In her new role, Barman will do “whatever we need” to deliver her truck “on time and on budget,” according to Jablanski.

The company, which has raised about $700 million from Bezos and other wealthy backers, at one point touted that its electric truck It will start on “Less than $20,000” before Congress and the Trump administration withdrew the federal EV tax credit. It’s now targeting a mid-$20,000 range for the starting price of its truck. Buyers will be able to customize it in all sorts of ways, including turning it into an SUV, for more money.

Farese became CEO just as Slate was about to begin converting its redeemable pre-order list — now about 160,000 people long — into car orders, according to Jablanski.

“Peter’s experience building Amazon Marketplace was critical to us,” Jablanski said.

Changing CEOs so early in the company’s history may come as a shock, though it’s not surprising that the company would hire a former Amazon executive. Bezos helped fund the startup, as did former Amazon CEO Diego Piacentini. The head of Bezos’ family office has a seat on the board. One of Slate’s founders is Jeff Wilke, who was CEO of Amazon Consumer. The heads of Slate’s navigation, UX/UI, e-commerce, fleet sales, and HR teams all worked at Amazon.