EV startup Faraday Future is in serious financial trouble Says Neveda Official

Faraday Future, the Chinese-backed electric car startup that unveiled a 1,000 horse-power concept car at CES 2016, could be in hot water if recent comments from a government official in Nevada prove accurate.

Around this time last year, Faraday Future was scouting multiple locations to build a $1 billion electric vehicle production facility. The company ultimately elected to build in Nevada and held a groundbreaking ceremony this past April.

AECOM, lead contractor on the job, confirmed to Jalopnik a couple of weeks back that it has stopped construction of the massive facility, adding that Faraday Future plans to resume construction in early 2017. In October, it was reported that Faraday Future had fallen behind on its payments to AECOM

Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz told Fortune earlier this month that the whole thing is a Ponzi scheme, adding that you have a new company that has never built a car, building a new plant in the middle of the desert that’s being financed by a mysterious Chinese billionaire (Jia Yueting). He said that at some point, as with Bernie Madoff, the game ends.

In a separate interview with China Daily last week, Schwartz said it’s clear that Yueting doesn’t have any money and it’s clear that Leshi (LeEco’s listed arm) isn’t making money (Yueting is the founder and CEO of LeEco). In an internal memo from Yueting obtained by Bloomberg, the entrepreneur says their cash demand ballooned and they over-extended themselves in their global strategy.

Faraday Future last month published a teaser of its first consumer electric vehicle, a 4-door crossover. The company said it’ll continue to push out teasers leading up to its big reveal at CES 2017 in early January.