A Lucid director nominated by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has become Interim Chief Executive Officer of vehicle components maker Fox Factory, under a contract that lets him keep his seat on the EV maker’s board.
Fox Factory named Douglas Grimm, 64, Interim Chief Executive Officer effective October 16, after Mike Dennison stepped down as CEO and left the board, according to the company’s 8-K filing.
Grimm “may also continue to serve on the boards of directors of Lucid Motors, Blue Bird Corporation and the other privately-held entities separately communicated to the Company,” according to his Interim CEO agreement, filed as an exhibit to the 8-K.
The only condition attached is notice. If his service on those boards “will exceed four business days per month,” he must provide “as much advance notice to the Board Chairperson as practicable,” the agreement says.
Any other outside board role requires the Fox board’s consent.
Grimm said in early July that he took delivery of a Lucid Gravity SUV in Florida.
A PIF Seat at Lucid
The executive sits on Lucid’s board as one of the five directors that Ayar Third Investment Company, the vehicle through which the PIF holds its Lucid stake, is entitled to nominate under a 2021 investor rights agreement.
Lucid’s 2025 proxy statement lists him as “designated for nomination by Ayar,” alongside Chairman Turqi Alnowaiser, Andrew Liveris, Nichelle Maynard-Elliott and Ori Winitzer.
He took the Ayar slot held until then by Sherif Marakby, who appears in the same list in the 2024 proxy and did not stand for re-election in 2025.
Lucid said it chose Grimm “based on his extensive executive experience in the automotive industry,” and stockholders elected him in June 2025.
He was re-elected in June with 260,283,817 votes for and 1,331,844 withheld, according to a Lucid filing, at a meeting where the PIF’s majority stake left no outcome in doubt.
Lucid’s board classifies him as an independent director under Nasdaq rules.
On Lucid’s Executive Committee
Grimm is also one of five members of Lucid’s Executive Committee, chaired by Alnowaiser and including Chief Executive Officer Silvio Napoli, Liveris and Winitzer, according to the 2026 proxy.
The committee “reviews, discusses with management and makes recommendations regarding the implementation and execution of our business plan, operational performance and certain other matters and approves transactions below certain thresholds set by our Board,” the proxy says.
It met eight times in 2025.
Lucid paid Grimm $347,481 for 2025, the highest total among its non-employee directors, including $321,609 in stock awards, $22,857 in cash and $3,015 for personal use of company-owned Lucid Air vehicles and the related tax reimbursement.
He holds 58,969 restricted stock units, all with settlement deferred, after a further grant of 43,870 units in June, according to his latest Form 4.
His filings show no open-market purchases or sales of Lucid shares.
Engine Capital’s Pick at Fox
Grimm joined Fox Factory’s board in March through a settlement with activist investor Engine Capital.
The February cooperation agreement required Fox to add “an independent director with executive-level operations experience in manufacturing,” “as identified by Engine Capital and subject to the approval of the Board,” and Fox appointed Grimm under its terms on March 25.
Fox placed him on its Audit Committee and on a Transformation Committee created under the same agreement to oversee “profitability, cost-cutting and margin improvement.”
Fox’s original proxy statement for its 2026 annual meeting listed his outside directorships as Blue Bird, Lumileds and Pangea, without mentioning Lucid.
Two days later the company filed a supplement “solely to update the biography of Douglas J. Grimm” to reflect “an additional public company directorship that was not included,” adding Lucid.
He also came to Blue Bird’s board in 2017 as a designee of American Securities, then the school-bus maker’s controlling stockholder, and now chairs it, according to its filings.
Blue Bird paid him $336,843 as Chairman for fiscal 2025, its latest proxy shows.
A Guidance Cut and a CEO Exit
The leadership change came alongside preliminary results that fell short of Fox’s own forecasts, according to the company.
Third-quarter net sales are expected at $336 million to $340 million, against guidance of $355 million to $380 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $38 million to $42 million, excluding about $12 million in tariff refunds, against $46 million to $54 million.
Fox cut its fiscal 2026 sales outlook to $1.35 billion to $1.38 billion from $1.42 billion to $1.47 billion.
It blamed weaker results at its Marucci Sports baseball unit before its sale closed on September 25, a supply disruption in its Powered Vehicles Group, “operating challenges” in its upfit business and softer bike sales.
Fox shares fell 13.3% on Friday to close at $16.04,
Grimm “is not a candidate for the permanent CEO role” and will help lead the search with executive firm Heidrick & Struggles, Fox said.
Chair Jean Hlay credited him with “more than four decades of operating experience in the automotive and industrial sectors,” while Lucid’s filings describe his career as spanning more than three decades.
His Fox contract pays a $1.065 million annual salary, a $600,000 completion bonus if he serves six months or until a permanent CEO is appointed, and $2 million in restricted stock units, plus up to $1.6 million more if he stays beyond six months.
It also provides a taxable housing and commuting allowance of $15,000 a month for travel between his “personal residences and the Company’s headquarters” in Duluth, Georgia.
Grimm remains on Fox’s board and its Transformation Committee but has left the Audit Committee.
Dennison will remain an employee while the company negotiates a transition agreement, the 8-K said.
