Last month, Lucid announced that Eric Bach, its longtime senior vice president of product and chief engineer, left the EV automaker after 10 years. While no reason for his abrupt departure was specified, we now have a little more insight into the exit. On Monday, Bach filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in federal court against Lucid alleging that he was fired after he complained about discrimination and a hostile work environment—namely that a coworker called Bach a “German Nazi” and turned the company against him.
In the complaint from his attorneys, Bach, who was born and raised in Germany, claims that Lucid’s human resources department launched a “tainted” investigation into Lucid’s workplace culture in late 2024 that resulted in a “significant” reduction to his wide-ranging responsibilities and him being excluded from Lucid board meetings. In mid-2025, Bach claims he learned from an unnamed colleague that Lucid’s Senior Director of HR Rachael Rivera had been “disparaging Bach in racist terms” during the investigation and allegedly referred to him as a “German Nazi.”
The complaint states that Bach encouraged the colleague to report the matter through proper internal channels and also did so himself, which led to the company “confirming” that Rivera had called him a Nazi. Despite that, and another allegation that Lucid’s VP of Program Management Gemma Parker told colleagues that she “hates” Bach “so much,” Bach claims Lucid protected Rivera and Parker, blamed his “unprofessional behavior,” and shut down his complaints. A few months later, Bach says Lucid tried pressuring him into resigning, then fired him when he refused. The full complaint can be read below:
Throughout the filing, Bach’s attorneys stress that the facts show he couldn’t have been terminated over performance issues, highlighting his extensive accomplishments in a decade with Lucid, including the launch of its first two vehicles, the Air sedan and Gravity SUV. The complaint lists the numerous raises, bonuses, and equity with which he was awarded as proof the company was satisfied with his work, including as recently as this year, and an informal promise made by a board member that Bach would soon be promoted to chief technical officer.
Ultimately, Bach is claiming that Lucid “intentionally discriminated against [him] on the basis of race,” “publicly disparaged him,” and ultimately turned him into a scapegoat for its difficulties in launching the Air and Gravity. The filing also points out that “labeling someone a Nazi is considered extremely serious” for a German national like Bach, who also speaks English with a German accent.
We contacted Lucid for comment, and though the automaker hasn’t yet issued a formal statement, a source within the company called Bach’s allegations “baseless” and disputed the characterization of his termination. The source pointed out that Lucid’s various product struggles—widespread software issues, manufacturing delays, quality control problems—are well-documented, and earlier this year the company began taking steps to restructure its leadership in a bid to get back on track.
This included promoting up Emad Dlala, the company’s former VP of powertrain tech who was given the title of Senior VP for Engineering and Digital following Bach’s departure. The source noted Dlala’s successful leadership of the powertrain team prompted Lucid to evaluate the responsibilities of all its executives, and the company concluded that Bach’s management of overall product development was causing a wide cascade of problems downhill from there. Though software wasn’t under Bach’s purview, the source argued that the software can’t be fully baked if the product development isn’t executed properly and on time first.
Lucid certainly isn’t alone in restructuring its leadership to consolidate responsibilities as product issues, especially involving software, continue to mount across the industry. In November, GM shuffled its executive ranks and announced the departure of two key software VPs and its head of AI, following the hiring of Sterling Anderson as its new chief product officer in May. But it’s probably safe to say this is the only instance where a departing executive is alleging being called a Nazi first.
The lawsuit states that Bach will also be filing charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over Title VII violations, as well as the California Civil Rights Department. Bach is demanding a jury trial. More to come as we have it.
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