

The investigation was spearheaded by Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. On June 13, 2019, United States House of Representatives launched an investigation into the Juul Labs, looking into the business deal with Altria, social media and advertising practices, and communications. Ethical questions have been raised about Coakley lobbying for the industry considering her former position as attorney general and the accusations of Juul marketing to youth. In April 2018, former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley joined Juul, working in the government affairs team to coordinate lobbying for the product, while advocating against underage usage. Juul bought a building in San Francisco in 2019 for almost $400 million. At the time, Juul had an annual revenue of about $2 billion. According to Wells Fargo, the deal valued Juul Labs at $38 billion. On December 20, 2018, Altria, one of the world's largest cigarette manufacturers, bought 35% of Juul for $12.8 billion. In July 2018, Juul raised $650 million, giving it a valuation of $15 billion. Pods are also referred to as, "vape juice."

As of July 2018, the Juul e-cigarette is manufactured in Shenzhen, China while the pods are made in the United States. The company grew from 200 employees in September 2017 to 1,500 by the end of 2018. Other board members include Nicholas Pritzker, whose family owned chewing tobacco giant Conwood, Riaz Valani, and Hoyoung Huh. Co-founder Adam Bowen worked as Chief Technology Officer and board member at Juul. Co-founder James Monsees worked as Chief Product Officer and board member at Juul. In December 2017, Goldman was replaced by Kevin Burns. In July 2017, Juul Labs was spun out of PAX Labs as an independent company, with Tyler Goldman, former CEO of PAX Labs, named as CEO of Juul after the spin-off. The Juul electronic cigarette was introduced by Pax Labs in June 2015. In 2015, the company sold Ploom, changed their name to Pax Labs, and developed Juul. by 2007, they started a business by the same name. In 2005, two former cigarette smokers, Adam Bowen and James Monsees met while they were graduate students in product-design at Stanford University and developed an e-cigarette called Ploom, and later created the Pax vaporizer device for cannabis and loose-leaf tobacco before founding Juul.

( / ˈ dʒ uː l/, stylized as JUUL Labs) is an American electronic cigarette company that spun off from Pax Labs in 2017.
