Austin Russell’s Bid to Reacquire Luminar 🚀

Austin Russell, the billionaire founder of Luminar, has made a bid to acquire the lidar maker five months after he was replaced as CEO following an ethics inquiry.

The takeover effort was disclosed in an SEC filing by Russell early Friday morning. It would involve his new company, Russell AI Labs, purchasing 100% of the outstanding shares of Luminar’s Class A Common Stock for an undisclosed price.

If it happens, Luminar would remain publicly traded, and Russell AI Labs may “acquire a different, larger global automotive technology company” and merge it with Luminar “to create a unified technology platform business (‘Luminar 2.0’),” according to the filing. If that happens, Russell may also invest in the newly combined company.

The proposal was made on October 14, “at the suggestion of certain shareholders” of Luminar and “the invitation of certain members of the board” — though the filing does not name names. Some of those board members approached Russell about the idea in September, according to a source familiar with the negotiations who was granted anonymity to speak about them. Luminar and Russell AI Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The proposed acquisition is just as sudden and surprising as Russell’s replacement in May. Luminar announced Russell’s resignation on May 19, the same day the company reported its first-quarter earnings. The company tapped former Xerox executive Paul Ricci to take over.

The company offered no details about why Russell was out aside from saying the board’s audit committee had conducted a “code of business conduct and ethics inquiry.” Luminar has yet to explain what that inquiry found. It has been sued by shareholders multiple times over the move and the way it was disclosed.

That said, Russell is no stranger to takeover attempts. In 2023, he launched a bid to buy Forbes. But that ultimately failed after some of the investors in the acquisition reportedly didn’t follow through. The bid process was also marred by an alleged connection to a Russian oligarch.

Russell has remained on Luminar’s board and was supposed to be “available to the incoming Chief Executive Officer on transition and technology matters,” according to the release. But he’s been absent in at least one way, by failing to have signed (in his capacity as a board member) any of the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission since being replaced.

In the meantime, Russell co-founded Russell AI Labs in September along with Markus Schäfer, CTO and board member of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, and Murtaza Ahmed, a former partner at the SoftBank Vision Fund. The new company claims it “backs and builds transformative AI and frontier technology companies” and has already taken a $300 million stake in agentic AI company Emergence.

This story has been updated with new information in the fourth paragraph about Luminar board members approaching Russell.