Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on steering through the mess
- In today’s CEO Daily: Allie Garfinkle talks to Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe about how to communicate with employees and investors during a time of turmoil.
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Good morning. When in doubt, communicate. That’s the message I took away from Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, and he told me it applies doubly when your company and industry is facing turmoil.
"The role of leadership is to make sure it's really clear how we're going to chart through the messiness,” said Scaringe in an interview with Fortune at SXSW last week, where Rivian was a headline sponsor. “So, whether it be tariffs, whether it be EV incentives, whether it be the globalization of electrification, we work really hard to drive back to our central vision around helping develop and build the world for our kids’ kids.”
Rivian shares are down about 16% in 2025 to date among a broader EV selloff. Meanwhile, the company, based in Irvine, Calif., is set to launch its new compact SUV, called the R2, which is anticipated to make waves as an affordable EV option. (EV-focused Rivian is currently small compared to the largest U.S. automakers—the company’s 2024 annual revenue was $4.97 billion. Comparatively, Ford clocked $185 billion in 2024 revenue.) Scaringe founded Rivian more than a decade ago, and the company went public in 2021.
"When you're a private company, you talk to your investors very transparently,” said Scaringe. “Suddenly, when you're public, you have to re-learn how to talk to investors in a way that's still incredibly transparent and authentic… I say this all the time in our leadership meetings: What would we do if we were private? It's important to know, because you don't want to be optimized around retail investors who are probably thinking in weeks or months."
Scaringe’s advice to other CEOs looking to communicate in the crosshairs? Stay authentic, don’t get distracted by short-term noise, and speak to all your stakeholders.
“The business we have—we have 15,000-16,000 employees right now—is growing,” he said. “With that large employee base, we have people that are on the right, on the left, in the middle. So, we have to be able to speak to the entirety of that employee base, as well. It’s helpful to draw from things like: We need to make amazing products. We need to ramp production. We need to drive costs down to make [EVs] as affordable as possible. The whole team catalyzes around that.”
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Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com