Using 10.1 × 109J/ψ events produced by the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPCII) at a center-of-mass energy s = 3.097 GeV and collected with the BESIII detector, we present a search for the rare semi-leptonic decay J/ψ → D−e+νe + c.c. No excess of signal above background is observed, and an upper limit on the branching fraction ℬ(J/ψ → D−e+νe + c. c.) < 7.1 × 10−8 is obtained at 90% confidence level. This is an improvement of more than two orders of magnitude over the previous best limit. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2021, The Author(s).