Austin Russell, its billionaire founder Illuminatedhas bid to acquire the lidar maker five months after replacing him as CEO following an ethics investigation.
The takeover attempt was revealed in a SEC filing by Russell early Friday morning. It would involve his new company, Russell AI Labs, buying 100% of Luminar’s existing Class A Common Stock for an undisclosed price.
If it does, Luminar will remain publicly traded and Russell AI Labs may “acquire a different, larger global automotive technology company” and merge it with Luminar “to create a unified technology platform business (“Luminar 2.0”),” according to the filing. If that happens, Russell may also invest in the new company.
The proposal was made on Oct. 14, “upon a proposal by certain shareholders” of Luminar and “at the invitation of certain board members” — though the filing does not name names. Some of those board members approached Russell about the idea in September, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak about them. Luminar and Russell AI Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposed buyout is just as sudden and surprising as Russell’s replacement in May. Luminar announced Russell’s resignation on May 19, the same day the company reported its first-quarter earnings. The company tapped former Xerox executive Paul Ricci to take over.
The company did not provide details on why Russell was out, saying the board’s audit committee was conducting a “code of business conduct and ethics investigation.” Luminar has yet to explain what that investigation found. It has been done sued by the shareholders many times about the movement and the way it was revealed.
That said, Russell is no stranger to takeover attempts. In 2023, he launched a bid to buy Forbes. But that ultimately fell through after some of the investors in the takeover reportedly didn’t follow through. The bidding process was also marred by a alleged relationship with a Russian oligarch.
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Russell remained on Luminar’s board and was supposed to be “available to the incoming CEO for transition and technology issues,” according to the release. However, he has been absent in at least one way, as he has not signed off (in his capacity as a board member) on any of the company’s SEC filings since he was replaced.
Meanwhile, Russell co-founded Russell AI Labs in September with Markus Schäfer, CTO and board member of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, and Murtaza Ahmed, a former partner at the SoftBank Vision Fund. The new company claims to “support and build transformative AI and cutting-edge technology companies” and has already taken a $300 million stake in AI firm Emergence.
This story has been updated with new information in the fourth paragraph about Luminar board members reaching out to Russell.
