![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c25bfc6403b68acad0149f2fda95103c.jpeg\")
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 05: Jeff Bezos attends the 11th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar on April 05, 2025 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre\/WireImage) | Image Credits:Emma McIntyre\/WireImage <\/p>\n SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 05: Jeff Bezos attends the 11th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar on April 05, 2025 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre\/WireImage) | Image Credits:Emma McIntyre\/WireImage <\/p>\n
The head of Jeff Bezos\u2019 family office has left the board of directors of Slate Auto, the electric vehicle startup backed by the Amazon founder, according to numerous state filings reviewed by TechCrunch.<\/p>\n
Melinda Lewison, who leads investments at Bezos Expeditions, appears to have stepped down at some point in the last few months, documents filed with the Delaware, Florida, and Massachusetts secretaries of state show. That leaves Bezos with no direct representation on Slate\u2019s board as the company prepares to put its low-cost electric truck into production later this year.<\/p>\n
Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Lewison and Bezos did not respond to emailed requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Lewison\u2019s departure raises questions about Bezos\u2019 support and involvement with the startup at a time when the Amazon founder is now apparently focused on robotics at his new startup, Project Prometheus. That company raised more than $6 billion late last year and is reportedly seeking $100 billion for a new fund focused on buying industrial companies in order to automate them with AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n The precise level of Bezos\u2019 involvement in Slate has always been difficult to divine. The company has never revealed how much money the Amazon founder contributed in its first funding round in 2023, which totaled around $120 million. Slate Auto also has not confirmed whether Bezos participated in the company\u2019s Series B round, which brought its total funding to around $700 million.<\/p>\n Last month, Slate announced a $650 million Series C round, but only named one lead investor: TWG Global, a firm run by Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter. Los Angeles-based VC firm Slauson & Co, an existing investor, confirmed to TechCrunch that it also participated.<\/p>\n Chris Barman, Slate\u2019s first hire and its now-former CEO, said onstage<\/a> at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that Bezos was \u201cpretty hands-off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had interface where we invited him in and he came and joined us once along the journey, and looked at the vehicle, and we talked a little bit about what the future might be,\u201d she said late last year. \u201cBut\u00a0other than that, he\u2019s very hands off and really letting us focus on getting the vehicle to market.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Slate Auto is loaded with Amazon alumni. It was co-founded by former Amazon Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke. The automotive startup\u2019s new CEO is Peter Faricy, a former VP of Amazon Marketplace. Many of the company\u2019s divisions are led by former Amazon employees<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 05: Jeff Bezos attends the 11th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Barker Hangar on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[205,36434,544,734,36388,9498,742,36435],"class_list":{"0":"post-61395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jeff-bezos","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-bezos-expeditions","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-jeff-bezos","12":"tag-melinda-lewison","13":"tag-santa-monica","14":"tag-slate-auto","15":"tag-techcrunch"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116535082812116910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}