Filed Chapter 11 (Aug 2024); core assets sold to Complete Solaria for ~$45M, which then adopted the SunPower name.
The rise & fall
9 moments · 1985–2025
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
1985
🌱
1985
Founded out of Stanford
Richard Swanson spins high-efficiency solar-cell research into a company decades before the rooftop boom.
Wikipedia
2020
🦄
2020
Back above $1B in the clean-energy wave
The green-stock run lifts the rooftop veteran back over the line; spinning off manufacturing as Maxeon leaves it a pure residential-solar play.
Macrotrends
2021
📈
2021
The peak: ~$9B in the green-stock mania$9B
The market cap swells to $9B early in the year as clean-energy stocks go vertical.
Macrotrends
2022
💔
2022
Slips out of the club
Rising interest rates crush rooftop-solar demand and the market cap falls back below $1B.
Macrotrends
2023–24
2023–24
Accounting problems and a cash crunch
Disclosed accounting issues and a deepening liquidity crisis pile up as demand keeps slumping.
SEC filing
2021–24
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2021–24
Glassdoor insiders traced the decline to 2021, when executives recruited from Amazon began running the solar veteran like a tech company — reorgs, repeated layoffs, canceled bonuses — with, reviewers said, no solar experience at the top. The mass 2024 layoffs arrived by email.
Aug 5 ’24
🪦
Aug 5 ’24
Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Files in Delaware amid the liquidity crisis; shareholders are wiped out.
Court filing
2024
2024
Core assets to Complete Solaria for ~$45M$45M
The bankruptcy sale hands the core businesses to Complete Solaria for a sliver of the peak value.
Electrek
Apr 2025
Apr 2025
The name outlives the company
Complete Solaria adopts the SunPower name and reclaims the SPWR ticker.
Electrek
$8.91Bof peak value erased · 37 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
SunPower was one of America's best-known rooftop-solar companies, and its market value swelled to $9B during the 2021 clean-energy boom. As interest rates rose and demand slumped, it disclosed accounting problems and a liquidity crisis; in August 2024 it filed for Chapter 11 and sold its core assets to Complete Solaria for about $45M, wiping out shareholders.
Source: Electrek / Solar Power World / Epiq (peak market cap ~$9B early 2021; Chapter 11 Aug 5 2024 in Delaware amid liquidity crisis and accounting issues; assets sold to Complete Solaria ~$45M, which reclaimed the SunPower name and SPWR ticker April 2025)
Where they went
Peter Faricy
CEO Apr 2021-Feb 2024 (last full-time CEO before Aug 2024 Chapter 11)
