Slate Hires New CEO Peter Faricy. Ex-CEO Chris Barman appointed new role

[motorolas]

Newsweek reported CEO Chris Barman now reporting to new CEO Peter Faricy

Bezos-Backed Slate Auto Hires New, Ex-Amazon CEO
https://www.newsweek.com/bezos-backed-slate-auto-hires-new-ex-amazon-ceo-11643016

Faricy will oversee Slate’s commercial, digital, finance, human relations, information technology, and legal divisions.

Barman’s new role will have her overseeing the creation, testing and manufacturing of vehicles including the engineering, design, manufacturing, program management, purchasing and quality divisions. Her decades of auto industry experience and expertise closely aligns with those departments. She now reports to Faricy.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

An interesting tidbit was an update in reservations to 160,000. Aside from that, I draw a blank on what the management chair shuffling implies. Except of course, that the investors thought some chair shuffling was required.

 

[Rich]

Newsweek reported CEO Chris Barman now reporting to new CEO Peter Faricy

Bezos-Backed Slate Auto Hires New, Ex-Amazon CEO
https://www.newsweek.com/bezos-backed-slate-auto-hires-new-ex-amazon-ceo-11643016

Faricy will oversee Slate’s commercial, digital, finance, human relations, information technology, and legal divisions.

Barman’s new role will have her overseeing the creation, testing and manufacturing of vehicles including the engineering, design, manufacturing, program management, purchasing and quality divisions. Her decades of auto industry experience and expertise closely aligns with those departments. She now reports to Faricy.

Bring'n in the suits and bean-counters. Must be getting near production!

 

[ScooterAsheville]

I'm still waiting for Slate to announce the results of the Series C funding round, which was started way back last summer. They've very quiet about that, aside from announcing it in June of 2025. Which is odd, because they were crowing to every media outlet in site that they had $700 million from Series A and B.

OTOH, I imagine they crowed about the $700 million to motivate and reassure potential Series C investors. Maybe there is no Series D at this time, so why share the results...

 

[Mac-Tyson]

An interesting tidbit was an update in reservations to 160,000. Aside from that, I draw a blank on what the management chair shuffling implies. Except of course, that the investors thought some chair shuffling was required.

It looks like Chris Barman is in roughly the same place maybe with a few less responsibilities for a more focused role. Since everything she’s doing now is likely most of what she did as CEO in Pre-Production. Now it seems like Slate is getting closer to Production Launch and they either felt that Chris wasn’t up to the expanded role or they wanted someone with more experience. Will be interesting to see how he does as a public face of the company since that was Chris’s role too which she did well in but did sometimes struggle with interviews. It was very clear she was more comfortable behind the scenes than in front of a camera. So that could have played a role in it too.

Slate when it comes to hiring does not want to leave anything up to chance with unexperienced hires that’s been very clear. Every major job they have posted is expecting veterans to apply who can hit the ground running.

 

[SparkYellow]

I have only known Bezos and Jassy as the Amazon CEO. But I am not an industry insider, just loyal customer. Is this the same Peter Faricy that left SunPower in 2024?

Edit: He was one of the VPs at Amazon.

https://michiganross.umich.edu/about/profile/peter-faricy

 

[Mac-Tyson]

I'm still waiting for Slate to announce the results of the Series C funding round, which was started way back last summer. They've very quiet about that, aside from announcing it in June of 2025. Which is odd, because they were crowing to every media outlet in site that they had $700 million from Series A and B.

OTOH, I imagine they crowed about the $700 million to motivate and reassure potential Series C investors. Maybe there is no Series D at this time, so why share the results...

Probably because unless they have doubled their funding there’s no benefit to sharing the results. The only reason they announced what they have at first was to assure people that big people were investing in this that they can make it to production and attract more small fish investors who are more comfortable investing knowing big fish like Bezos is on board. Right now the only media they are likely to share is final pricing and launch date since unless they have a number that matches or exceeds that 700 million it doesn’t give them much benefit to share it.

 

[Doctors Do Little]

It looks like Chris Barman is in roughly the same place maybe with a few less responsibilities for a more focused role. Since everything she’s doing now is likely most of what she did as CEO in Pre-Production. Now it seems like Slate is getting closer to Production Launch and they either felt that Chris wasn’t up to the expanded role or they wanted someone with more experience. Will be interesting to see how he does as a public face of the company since that was Chris’s role too which she did well in but did sometimes struggle with interviews. It was very clear she was more comfortable behind the scenes than in front of a camera. So that could have played a role in it too.

Slate when it comes to hiring does not want to leave anything up to chance with unexperienced hires that’s been very clear. Every major job they have posted is expecting veterans to apply who can hit the ground running.

I agree. As much as I don't like how the Amazon workers are treated in the distribution centers, the operating execs are ferociously focused on delivery...in a weird way, I view this as their "putting the adult britches on" in gearing up to actually deliver!

 

[AmatuerX]

This makes me nervous. Let the enshitification begin.

Additional article for reference:
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/slate-auto-changes-ceo-months-ahead-of-affordable-ev-launch/

 

[fuzzyweis]

I think it's just adding more structure, my company did that the past year, we had a CEO when we were less than 50 employees and a very flat reporting structure, once we hit near 50 the CEO changed roles more to marketing and such and our new CEO came in that was more business focused, along with more mid-level management. So as others have said, it sounds like they're moving from startup to production.

 

[MiketheCarGeek]

Newsweek reported CEO Chris Barman now reporting to new CEO Peter Faricy

Bezos-Backed Slate Auto Hires New, Ex-Amazon CEO
https://www.newsweek.com/bezos-backed-slate-auto-hires-new-ex-amazon-ceo-11643016

Faricy will oversee Slate’s commercial, digital, finance, human relations, information technology, and legal divisions.

Barman’s new role will have her overseeing the creation, testing and manufacturing of vehicles including the engineering, design, manufacturing, program management, purchasing and quality divisions. Her decades of auto industry experience and expertise closely aligns with those departments. She now reports to Faricy.

Chris is ABSOLUTELY the right person to launch Slate!

I "believe" Faricy is being brought in for Sales & Marketing experience, to convert Reservations into Sales, and Accessories. They need to convince us to Buy and Accessorize (I don't think that will be a problem). 😄

Here is an old video of him while at Amazon Marketplace.

 

[Johnologue]

Ehh. One of the things that gave me confidence in Slate was that the investors were relatively hands-off. Now the Amazon people are showing up. We'll see how that goes.

Finally, someone who understands the value of data collection and automobiles as a service - they help create an active personal relationship with customers, etc.!

 

[danielt1263]

Maybe they are starting to think about what's next and Barman is more interested in focusing on the next new product? I'd hate to think she was forced out of the position; she certainly didn't do anything to warrant that AFAICT.

 

[ElectricShitbox]

I'm glad Chris is staying, I like her. I'm hoping this was always the plan, with the company shifting from being mostly an engineering firm to a full automaker. If this move is a reaction, then I worry what that means. We'll see if it becomes... amazonified.

 

[motorolas]

I'm glad Chris is staying, I like her. I'm hoping this was always the plan, with the company shifting from being mostly an engineering firm to a full automaker. If this move is a reaction, then I worry what that means. We'll see if it becomes... amazonified.

With all the people associated from or coming from Amazon, I’m sure it’ll be the case of getting “amazonified”. I’m still interested in the Slate, but I’m sure Big Tech is looking at this closely and looking at other ways to monetize aside from accessories and parts for the Slate.