Lucid shares climbed to $7.11 in the first hour of trading on Friday, their highest level since April, as the EV maker’s stock extended a sharp rebound and headed for one of its strongest weeks in a year.
The stock opened at $6.37 and touched $7.11 before easing back to about $6.89 by late morning, up roughly 6.6% from Thursday’s close of $6.46, on volume of about 16 million shares.
The gain capped a turbulent week that swung from a record low to a rapid recovery.
A Record Low, Then a Rebound
Lucid shares crashed as much as 57.0% to an all-time low of $2.37 on Tuesday, triggering multiple volatility halts, on the heaviest trading in the stock all year.
The plunge came six hours after EV‘s report that the company rejected as “completely false.”
The company said it had sufficient cash to fund operations well into next year, that it had not formed any special board committee to weigh such scenarios, and that its restructuring adviser, AlixPartners, was helping only to improve operations and had not recommended bankruptcy.
Lucid ended the first quarter with about $714 million in cash and roughly $3.2 billion in total liquidity.
The company laid out its position in an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on July 14.
The shares pared their losses to close Tuesday at $4.62, then jumped more than 27.0% on Wednesday to $5.95 after chief executive Silvio Napoli personally rejected the claims in a post on LinkedIn, saying the board had explored neither option.
AlixPartners issued its own statement on Thursday, saying it had neither provided nor been asked to provide Lucid any advice on a bankruptcy filing or a take-private transaction, and that its engagement was confined to improving the company’s operations.
The stock added a further 8.6% on Thursday to close at $6.46, before Friday’s push higher left it nearly tripling from Tuesday’s intraday low.
Napoli said he would give a full update on the company’s August 4 earnings call.
A Strong Week on Paper
Lucid is on track for a weekly gain of about 19.3%, measured against the prior Friday’s close of $5.55, which would be its strongest week in roughly a year.
Trading volumes were extraordinary during the swings, with about 156 million shares changing hands on Tuesday’s crash alone, close to eight times the stock’s three-month daily average of around 20 million.
The rebound, however, only partly repaired the damage.
Even after Friday’s rally, the shares remain far below their 52-week high of $33.70 and are down heavily from a year ago, leaving Lucid with a market value of about $2.58 billion across roughly 390 million shares outstanding.
The company reported a trailing loss of $13.16 a share, lost around $2.7 billion in 2025 and has been burning close to $1 billion in cash a quarter.
Under Pressure Since the Q2 Miss
The week’s volatility built on months of operational strain.
Lucid missed second-quarter delivery expectations, handing over 3,953 vehicles, and its shares had already dropped on that miss and the departure of its chief financial officer.
The company suspended its 2026 production forecast of 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles in May, after supplier problems disrupted output of the Gravity SUV, and said it would issue new guidance once Napoli completed a review of its targets and inventory.
Lucid delivered 15,841 vehicles in 2025, a fraction of the volumes it projected when it went public in 2021. Sales of the flagship Air sedan recently slid to their lowest since 2022, according to Cox Automotive data, though the Gravity SUV set a US monthly record in June.
Napoli, who took over as chief executive on June 1, has moved quickly to reshape the company.
He has overhauled the senior leadership team, with Raja Ramana Macha arriving from Eaton as chief technology officer and Alexander De Bock, formerly of TI Automotive, set to become finance chief in place of the departing Taoufiq Boussaid.
Napoli has also halved the number of executives reporting to him and cut about 18.0% of the company’s US workforce, moves the company has said should lower its cost base. The US reductions are expected to save about $158 million a year, and the market turmoil briefly spread to rival Rivian on Tuesday before it recovered.
To shore up its balance sheet, Lucid drew $800 million from its Saudi credit line this month.
The company is majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which has invested more than $9 billion since 2018 and remains its financial backstop.
Analysts Split
Wall Street is divided on whether the reset is enough.
Baird called the leadership overhaul a bigger deal than the quarterly miss, taking a more constructive view, while other firms trimmed their price targets during the week as sentiment on the stock soured. RBC cut its price target on the stock during the week, and Morgan Stanley kept its underweight rating even as the shares rebounded. The week also brought a rare tailwind for the sector, as California introduced a $3,500 rebate for first-time electric-vehicle buyers, reviving direct consumer subsidies in the largest US car market.
Much of the debate centres on the make-or-break midsize Cosmos, Lucid‘s first model aimed below $50,000, which the company plans to unveil this summer and build first in Saudi Arabia before Arizona.
The company is also counting on a robotaxi programme with Uber and Nuro, and on licensing its powertrain technology to other automakers, to broaden its business beyond its own car sales.
Until those bets mature, Lucid is leaning on the Air sedan and the higher-volume Gravity SUV, which has undersold expectations and prompted heavy financing incentives on unsold stock.
The stock’s next test comes on August 4, when Napoli is expected to lay out his turnaround plan and updated guidance.
For now, a share that changed hands near $2 three days ago sits back above $6, though still a fraction of where it traded a year earlier. Whether the recovery holds is likely to hinge on the substance of Napoli’s August 4 update.
Lucid Group Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID)
