Formula 1: Did William Storey actually sell his majority stake in Rich Energy?

William Storey reportedly sold his majority stake in Rich Energy, but recent tweets from the company’s Twitter page have left fans wondering about the Haas Formula 1 title sponsor.

After a week full of weird quotes, weirder tweets, even weirder images and just an all-around weird debacle led by Rich Energy founder and CEO William Storey pertaining to the company’s title sponsorship of the Haas Formula 1 team, Storey sold his majority stake in the company.

Or did he?

Despite Storey’s reported departure from the British beverage company that signed as the title sponsor for Formula 1’s lone American team ahead of the 2019 season, the Rich Energy-Haas debacle has gotten even weirder as a result of the company’s Twitter activity, which is what Storey primarily utilized to elevate the situation’s weirdness to begin with in the week leading up to his “departure”.

Here is the tweet about his departure from the company.

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But is this legit?

Yes, various news outlets have “confirmed” his departure. I get it. There have been other reports about exactly who bought his shares to go along with reports that Rich Energy will be renamed Lightning Volt Limited.

But let’s not forget that when Rich Energy tweeted that they had but ties with Haas, many news outlets picked up on it and “confirmed” it as fact, even when it was nothing more than a lie by Storey — a lie he later unintentionally admitted to.

Here is this tweet.

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner was the first of many sources to prove that this tweet was false.

Let’s also not forget that Storey did not unintentionally admit this lie until several days later, but only mere hours before it emerged that he had reportedly sold his majority stake in the company.

So did he actually sell his majority stake in the company?

Everything seems a little bit fishy, especially given the recent activity on Rich Energy’s Twitter account.

The tweets that have come since the tweet pertaining to Storey’s departure look exactly like the unprofessional tweets that he had become far too prone to posting.

This tweet is the only non-Storey-like tweet on this account following his departure, but it is strangely also the only reference to anything to do with lightning on the page of the company that supposedly changed their name to “Lightning Volt Limited”.

Also, “soon”? This change was reported as already having happened, and now here we are three days later.

Rich Energy, which were required to change their stag head logo by Thursday, July 18 after losing their legal action to Whyte Bikes over the use of this logo, did change their logo on this date, but the Storey-like tweets continued on this date as well — still with no reference to Lightning Volt, again, three days later.

They then shared this message about Red Bull taking Storey to court.

However, while Rich Energy are clearly also listed as defendants in this case against their fellow Formula 1 competitors and energy drinks company that they insist they are better than, this account only mentions Storey as it pertains to the so-called “cynic” seeing the “pattern emerging”.

Several hours later, Rich Energy shared another message, this one insulting Red Bull Racing managing director Dr. Helmut Marko and team principal Christian Horner.

Given what has gone on on this account over the last week or so, there is no way that this isn’t Storey’s work.

That said, Storey’s departure from Rich Energy has been confirmed, as documents were filed with the United Kingdom’s Companies House, a registrar of British businesses, revealing that he is no longer associated with the company.

Additionally, it was revealed that the company had changed their name from Rich Energy to Lightning Volt Limited, so yes, he has sold his majority stake in the company.

Industry site Formula Money broke this news, and these details are confirmed by Companies House.

However, it would be shocking if Storey is not still in control of Rich Energy’s (Yes, Rich Energy still) Twitter account.

Let’s be real; he was never, ever going to go away quietly.

As stated, the lightning picture is the only reference to anything to do with lightning on their page, so this very well could be a ploy to try to make fans think somebody else is now behaving in a childish manner while not giving the company of which he is no longer a part additional publicity.

Additionally, the decision to only call out “Mr. Storey” for being a defendant while completely ignoring “Rich Energy Limited” could be a way to further illustrate this false message and a way to make it look like Storey is somehow really the victim of this whole debacle with Red Bull now “picking on him” — and also a convenient way not to publicly rip Rich Energy for being in legal trouble yet again.

Plus, he has consistently referred to himself in the third person as “Mr. Storey” this whole time, so that hasn’t changed; literally nothing about the overall appearance and wording of the account’s tweets has changed, not even the hashtags.

These tweets look like the exact kind of unprofessional tweets that Storey had been sending prior to his “departure”, and he had been the only person with access to this Twitter account. There was also never a confirmation that this account, much less its ownership, had changed in any way afterward, and perhaps that is because it is considered his personal account as opposed to a true business account.

Regardless of the details about what exactly is taking place in this ongoing situation, it looks like Storey wasn’t lying when he said “He’ll be back” — aside of the fact that he probably never left.

The debacle involving Haas Formula 1 title sponsor Rich Energy and Haas themselves, despite William Storey’s reported departure from the former, is clearly not over.