Young EV-centric brand ZEEKR is continuing its efforts to become a globally recognized name in the space as it gears up for an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) this week. The Geely-owned sub-brand will go public later this week and seeks a valuation of over 5 billion dollars.

It’s only been three years since Chinese automotive conglomerate Geely Holding launched ZEEKR – a new EV-focused sub-brand focused on delivering premium zero-emissions mobility to compete against the likes of NIO and Tesla.

In that short time, ZEEKR has already launched a refreshed multiple models, including its flagship 001 shooting brake and its 009 multi-purpose vehicle (MPV). We’ve also seen a new bespoke sedan called the 007 and another incoming electric van called the MIX.

This past February, Geely announced that ZEEKR had secured $750 million in Series A funding, valuing the EV sub-brand at around $13 billion when the investment is completed.

Three months later, ZEEKR is issuing depository shares in an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, seeking a significantly lower valuation—a telling metric on the current state of the value of Chinese EV automakers in the US market.

ZEEKR files with SEC ahead of US IPO

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Friday, ZEEKR Intelligent Technology Holding Limited is gearing up for an IPO on the NYSE that will represent 175,000,000 ordinary shares (17,500,000 American Depository Shares).

In the filing, ZEEKR said it expects its IPO to garner prices between $18 and $21 per ADS, meaning the Chinese automaker is looking to raise as much as $367 million. That also puts ZEEKR’s targeted valuation for the IPO at $5.13 billion.

For perspective, some of ZEEKR’s competitors are already traded on the NYSE, including NIO ($NIO), XPeng Motors ($XPEV), and Li Auto ($LI), whose market capitalizations were $11.6 billion,  $8.55 billion, and $29.7 billion, respectively, at market close on Friday.

While ZEEKR’s expected valuation is relative to its competitors, it’s significantly lower than originally anticipated as last fall, the automaker said a US IPO would offer a valuation of around $18 billion.

Per the filing, ZEEKR will have 2,440,846,254 ordinary shares outstanding upon completion of the IPO as long as underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs. ZEEKR said it will trade under the ticker symbol “ZK” and intends to ring this opening bell in New York City on May 10.

Elon Musk’s no.2 at Tesla, Tom Zhu, is going back to his responsibilities as VP of China as the CEO isolates himself at the top.

Zhu has long been the leader of Tesla’s operations in China and led the very successful Gigafactory Shanghai effort.

Gigafactory Shanghai quickly became Tesla’s best-performing manufacturing facility and to replicate the success in Texas, Musk made Zhu in charge of all Gigafactories back in late 2022.

However, we reported that Zhu was taking an even bigger role at Tesla as Musk was busy running several other companies and spending especially more time at his newly acquired Twitter.

We exclusively reported that Zhu was even made in charge of North American sales and became the de facto head of Tesla’s automotive business – second in command to Musk at Tesla.

He was elevated to the critical “leadership” at Tesla that need to reported their stock transaction to the SEC:

In recent months, Musk took over North American sale operations from Zhu, according to sources familiar with the matter.

As we reported during our podcast last Friday, several sources told Electrek that Tom Zhu was stepping down from his responsibilities with Tesla in North America.

Now, several media in China are confirming that Zhu is indeed coming back to China to lead Tesla’s operations there.

With several rounds of layoffs and executive departures over the last month, it is resulting in Elon Musk isolating himself at the top.

Tesla has to identify critical executives who need to report their stock holdings and transactions to the SEC. The automaker already had a limited official leadership for a company of its size, but even its limited bench was cut by 50% in just a month:

Electrek’s Take

I have talked before about a theory that Musk is cleaning house at Tesla at a time when his leadership is being challenged through his compensation package, which is sort of turning into a confidence vote.

With not as deep of a bench, Musk is making himself more critical at Tesla. At the same time, some of his fans have been pushing a narrative that he will leave Tesla if the shareholders don’t reapprove his compensation package.

The CEO claimed the contrary in the trial over the compensation package, but he has conveniently not denied the theory at this time.

Both Zhu and Baglino were seen as potential replacements for CEO or even potential new COO to support Musk.

Now, one of them is not at Tesla anymore and the other is going back to China.