Elon Musk taunts Tesla rival Rivian after its blockbuster market debut

Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated excessive manufacturing and break-even money circulation would be the true check for rival carmaker Rivian, which had a blockbuster IPO on Wednesday and now has a market worth of over $100 billion.

“There have been a whole lot of automotive startups, each electrical and combustion, however Tesla is [the] solely American carmaker to achieve excessive quantity manufacturing & optimistic money circulation in previous 100 years,” Musk stated in a tweet Thursday.

He added: “I hope they’re [Rivian] capable of obtain excessive manufacturing and breakeven money circulation. That’s the true check.”

Rivian, which didn’t instantly reply to a CNBC request for touch upon Musk’s tweets, has by no means recorded income and it expects lower than $1 million in gross sales within the third quarter.

It says it has 55,400 pre-orders for its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck and a contract to construct 100,000 electrical vans with Amazon by 2030.

However trusting Rivian to assemble the autos and ship them profitably represents a large gamble for traders who’re already valuing the corporate larger than conventional auto giants Ford and Basic Motors.

Regardless of the shortage of income, Rivian raised round $12 billion in its market debut, making the IPO the biggest on the planet this 12 months. The IPO additionally made Rivian the second most precious automobile producer within the U.S. behind Tesla.

After its first two days of buying and selling in 2010, Tesla had a market cap of simply over $2 billion. In the meantime, R.J. Scaringe, the CEO of Rivian, was value that a lot on his personal after his firm’s second day on the general public market.

Rivian shares popped 57% of their first two days on the Nasdaq. Scaringe, who based Rivian in 2009, owns 17.6 million shares, valued at $2.2 billion, based mostly on Thursday’s closing inventory value of $122.99.

“We started enthusiastic about the truck, SUV, and crossover segments as they introduced a large alternative for us to display how a clear sheet, technology-focused car may get rid of lengthy accepted compromises,” Scaringe wrote within the firm’s IPO prospectus.

“We needed to ascertain our model by delivering a mix of effectivity, on-road efficiency, off-road functionality, useful utility, and product refinement that merely did not exist out there.”

Rivian has poached quite a few former Tesla staff, together with key engineers that helped to construct the Tesla Mannequin 3.

It isn’t the primary time Musk has thrown shade at Rivian. Final month he tweeted “prototypes are trivial in comparison with scaling manufacturing and provide chain.” 

— Further reporting by Ari Levy.