The strange and terrible saga of Damon Motorcycles continues, with the latest twist being a mass rush to the lifeboats. Or maybe there weren’t even any lifeboats, but the electric motorcycle manufacturer’s leaders are abandoning ship—according to one report, the entire board of directors has resigned.
The story so far
Damon Motorcycles rose to notoriety in the days just before COVID-19, first by marketing a “smart motorcycle” safety system and then by attending CES with an electric motorcycle designed to integrate that system. Early-on, some Internet commenters pointed out similarities between Damon’s chassis and a Yamaha R1, and the similarities between Damon’s powertrain and some components from Zero. But a second-generation Damon prototype shown at CES later seemed to indicate the company had moved into clean-slate designs; they sold lots of pre-orders and promised battery and motor performance that exceeded anything then on the market, with an adjustable chassis that could morph into an around-town standard riding position with a crouched-in racetrack position also available.
In the years since this promises, Damon has delivered no bikes to customers. After initially promising to build their bikes in British Columbia, Canada, they then said they’d build them in California, but no serious attempt at founding a factory is evident. The company was briefly listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, then punted to over-the-counter markets as its stock price plummeted. Before the attempt to raise money through stock sales, Damon tried to bring in private investment funds and claimed to have a big nest egg from all the pre-orders.
In late 2024, Jay Giraud (one of the company’s original founders) left his roles as CEO, president and executive chairman, with his founder shares converted to common shares, which removed some of his voting privileges. Co-founder Dominique Kwong, who had temporarily stepped away from the company, returned and took over as CEO role. Although they still weren’t actually making any saleable motorcycles, Damon did say they’d inked deals with component suppliers and in December of 2025 said they had a HyperSport Race prototype 70 percent finished. That’s a long way off the production schedule that Giraud initially promised, but it’s something. The Damon faithful still had a faint glimmer of hope.
Mo’ problems
But in the weeks since, we’ve had more and more bad news from Damon. In early February, Damon’s Chief Financial Officer left, after two years with the company. Two weeks after that, they lost another board member. And now Betakit.com, a blog about Canadian startups, says Dominique Kwong and the rest of the board has all resigned.
According to Betakit:
Damon announced in a short press release on Friday evening that its board of directors, including the CEO and CFO, had resigned. The announcement is the latest in a steady stream of departures over the past month, including CFO Bal Bhullar (who was replaced in an interim capacity by a longtime company contractor) and board member Karan Sodhi.
Damon’s website, which has not been updated to include the latest announcement, only lists Kwong and chairman Shashi Tripathi as members of the board. BetaKit has reached out to Damon for clarity on who is now leading its operations and what the future of the company looks like.
We have not seen any other confirmation of Betakit’s claims, except that at time of writing, the Board of Directors page on Damon’s site lists nobody.
Looks like the pre-orders might be waiting a while longer for their new bikes.
