LeEco's founder denies rift in ties, touts car plan

Jia Yueting (second left) at Faraday Future electric car company, July 17,2017. [Photo from Jia's weibo]

Jia Yueting, founder of Chinese internet company LeEco, posted a statement on social media platforms on Monday, denying rumors that the company and investors have broken ties with him.

In the statement, Jia said electric car company Faraday Future will build a new plant in Hanford in California, adding that the original plan to build manufacturing plant in Nevada remained unchanged.

"We are working with every effort to deliver high-quality production car", Jia said on his personal accounts on the platforms including Wechat and weibo.

Employees poses at Faraday Future electric car company, August 7, 2017. [Photo from Jia's weibo]

Faraday Future still needs $1 billion to put its self-driving supercar, the FF 91, on the road, said business magazine Forbes.

Moreover, Tencent News said Jia arrived in Hong Kong on Monday to seek new funding. Jia will stay there for a few days, and has no plans to return to Chinese mainland at present, the news agency said, citing a source.

LeEco's listed company, Leshi Internet Information & Technology stopped trading on Shenzhen Stock Exchange on April 14.

Leshi's financial report showed that its short-term borrowing reached over 2.1 billion yuan as of the end of March this year, and the total current liability increased to 11.6 billion yuan. The company is expected to suffer over 600 million yuan loss in the first half of this year, compared to a profit of 284 million yuan in the same period of last year, according to its latest filing.