The head of Jeff Bezos’ 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.
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’s board as the company prepares to put its low-cost electric truck into production later this year.
Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Lewison and Bezos did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Lewison’s departure raises questions about Bezos’ 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.
The precise level of Bezos’ 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’s Series B round, which brought its total funding to around $700 million.
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.
Chris Barman, Slate’s first hire and its now-former CEO, said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that Bezos was “pretty hands-off.”
Techcrunch event San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 REGISTER NOW“We’ve 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,” she said late last year. “But other than that, he’s very hands off and really letting us focus on getting the vehicle to market.”
Still, Slate Auto is loaded with Amazon alumni. It was co-founded by former Amazon Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke. The automotive startup’s new CEO is Peter Faricy, a former VP of Amazon Marketplace. Many of the company’s divisions are led by former Amazon employees.
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Sean O'Kane
Sr. Reporter, Transportation
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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