PIF may be mulling an acquisition of EV maker Lucid Group: Market speculation that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), wants to fully acquire US-headquartered EV maker Lucid Group saw the company’s shares surge some 43% on Friday, Reuters reports. PIF already holds a majority stake of over 65% in the firm, the outlet added.

Is talk of an acquisition just a lot of hot air? Speculation that an acquisition was in the offing is effectively “market gossip” attributed to Betaville, an independent website covering M&A and other agreements, Reuters noted. One long-short fund manager told Reuters that the fund shorted Lucid amid Friday’s share spike, based on the belief that the spike “was solely based on rumors,” the outlet added.

PIF has already invested heavily in Lucid: PIF invested over USD 1 bn in Lucid Motors — the brand name of Lucid Group — in 2018, and construction of the company’s Saudi Arabia production plant began in May 2022. 80% of all EVs produced by Lucid will be made in Saudi Arabia by 2030 with 155k EVs produced annually in the Kingdom by 2025, Lucid’s Vice President for MENA, Faisal Sultan, told Asharq Business in October.

This is part of KSA’s bigger EV push: Saudi Arabia’s first EV company, Ceer — a JV between PIF and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group — secured a site for its USD 96 mn EV factory in the King Abdullah Economic Center in November, with plans to sell EVs in Saudi Arabia by 2025. And Dubai’s Admiral Mobility will bring some 5k commercial vehicles to Saudi Arabia and the UAE this year and next, we noted in December. In 2018, PIF was interested in taking US EV and clean energy firm Tesla private, but no agreement was reached, Reuters noted.