Company: CCIXW
Filing Date: 2025-12-05
Form Type: S-4/A
Source: 0001193125-25-309933
Chunk: 136

Company: Churchill Capital Corp IX/Cayman
Filing Date: 2025-12-05
Form: S-4/A
Chunk 136
---
 us, it could make it more difficult for us to, among other things, compete with other market participants, manage our R&D activities and retain existing partners or cultivate new ones.

Our success similarly hinges on the ability to attract, motivate, develop and retain a sufficient number of other highly skilled personnel, including software, systems engineering, automotive, safety, operations, design, finance, marketing, and support personnel. Competition for qualified highly skilled personnel can be strong, especially in the autonomous driving industry, and we can provide no assurance that we will be successful in attracting or retaining such personnel now or in the future. Employees may be more likely to leave us if the shares of our capital stock they own or the shares of our capital stock underlying their equity incentive awards have significantly reduced in value or the vested shares of our capital stock they own or vested shares of our capital stock underlying their equity incentive awards have significantly appreciated. The significant reduction in the value of the Post-Closing Company common stock may require us to grant additional or larger individual equity incentive awards in order to prevent employee departures and to attract new personnel. The issuance of additional shares upon settlement or exercise of those awards would result in dilution to the holders of the Post-Closing Company common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market and may have a negative impact on our stock price.

Many of our employees may receive significant proceeds from sales of our equity in the public markets once their applicable vesting restrictions are satisfied and applicable lock-up restrictions expire, which may reduce their motivation to continue to work for us. Further, any inability to recruit, develop and retain qualified employees, particularly in the highly competitive market for AI developers and engineers, may limit our ability to grow our teams as we commercialize or result in high employee turnover and may force us to pay significantly higher wages, which may harm our profitability.

Laws and regulations may also restrict our ability to attract, motivate and retain the required level of qualified personnel. For example, many of our personnel in the United States are qualified foreign nationals whose ability to live and work in the United States is contingent upon the continued availability of appropriate visas. We expect to continue to rely on foreign nationals to fill part of our recruiting needs. As a result, changes in United States immigration policies, work permit regulations, or visa requirements, including changes that limit the availability of certain work visas or increase visa fees, may adversely affect our ability to retain and hire qualified personnel. If work permits are denied, revoked, or not renewed, we may face disruptions