RJ Scaringe gets new pay package worth up to $4.6 billion

[Chase32]

Good for him! He’s built such a great company in a very difficult space. Looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings.

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[Gen(R3)Xer]

Even then, they could live like royalty on 100MM a year, and the rest can be used to make sure that cure is actually affordable for the rest of us. The only thing billions of dollars is good for is buying political influence. Our system works best with one person, one vote. Billionaires shortcut this by buying politicians.

Absolutely. We’ve basically just ended up right back where we were with robber barons, railroad tycoons, and income inequality because the rich have consolidated and hoarded their wealth and power.

 

[DuoRivians]

This is an important point. Comparing him to someone like Sundar for comp isn't really 1:1. If you compare his comp against other founders it's more realistic because like them, so much of his wealth is unrealized gains tied to stock ownership.

Bottom line for me is, if RJ hits anywhere close to the $4.6b it will be because the company has become extremely successful and anyone who owns RIVN today (and a lot of the employees who have equity) will be very wealthy as a result.

The rub is that Rivian and RJ decided to reset his existing incentive comp plan to a much lower stock strike price of $15.22.

After the IPO, RJ already had an incentive comp plan that would have made him very rich if the company performed well.

But now, after the stock has fallen so much, the board and RJ decided that the stock hitting IPO levels is unrealistic, so they reset the plan to be much lower/easier and effectively giving him more shares beyond founder shares/options.

Why does he get a second chance to get rich, while the rest of investors who participated at IPO don’t? Effectively, the board is communicating that it no longer thinks rivn can realistically hit IPO levels.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Absolutely. We’ve basically just ended up right back where we were with robber barons, railroad tycoons, and income inequality because the rich have consolidated and hoarded their wealth and power.

Exactly. I don't buy the argument that someone won't work hard to create these jobs and run these companies if they could only make something like 100MM a year or even be capped at 100MM in total assets. At that level you can provide for your every need and want except maybe for dick rockets or yachts for your yacht but when children are going to bed hungry or people dying because they cannot afford basic life sustaining medicine you're a dick for hoarding that level of wealth instead of sharing it.

Capitalism is an excellent motivator for people to succeed and drive innovation, but it can conflict with democracy when an individual has the wealth equivalent to that of a country. I don't think anyone could say with a straight face that running Rivian wouldn't be worth it to RJ if he couldn't make more than 100MM dollars. I severely doubt anyone on this forum is even close to that level of wealth.

 

[Greg Chick]

Agreed, and certainly not close to a trillion dollars. That’s beyond ridiculous. The only person who deserves to be given that much money is the person who finds a cure for cancer.

And funds it.

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

The rub is that Rivian and RJ decided to reset his existing incentive comp plan to a much lower stock strike price of $15.22.

After the IPO, RJ already had an incentive comp plan that would have made him very rich if the company performed well.

But now, after the stock has fallen so much, the board and RJ decided that the stock hitting IPO levels is unrealistic, so they reset the plan to be much lower/easier and effectively giving him more shares beyond founder shares/options.

Why does he get a second chance to get rich, while the rest of investors who participated at IPO don’t? Effectively, the board is communicating that it no longer thinks rivn can realistically hit IPO levels.

lol this is what people aren’t getting. He didn’t meet his prior goals. So, he has this company, but he doesn’t have his $$$. He wants his $$$ - that is the only reason for the incentive plan reset. But here is the rub: the reason he hasn’t gotten his comp is because of the decisions he has made. So, odds are he isn’t going to hit his targets again.

All that has changed is that Rivian has essentially tied its survival to this guy. And his plan. So, we better hope that launching a $55k EV that apparently no one really wants, into a service environment that is beyond capacity, is going to carry the day. Maybe? No one is able to consistently sell EVs in the US anymore. But maybe this plan will work.

 

[My Name is Ryan]

I didn’t read the article, but is one of the factors of the payout whether or not we get CarPlay??

 

[DuoRivians]

lol this is what people aren’t getting. He didn’t meet his prior goals. So, he has this company, but he doesn’t have his $$$. He wants his $$$ - that is the only reason for the incentive plan reset. But here is the rub: the reason he hasn’t gotten his comp is because of the decisions he has made. So, odds are he isn’t going to hit his targets again.

All that has changed is that Rivian has essentially tied its survival to this guy. And his plan. So, we better hope that launching a $55k EV that apparently no one really wants, into a service environment that is beyond capacity, is going to carry the day. Maybe? No one is able to consistently sell EVs in the US anymore. But maybe this plan will work.

Rivian can survive and exist without RJ as CEO too. I don’t get the board’s belief that he’s irreplaceable.

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

Rivian can survive and exist without RJ as CEO too. I don’t get the board’s belief that he’s irreplaceable.

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

I didn’t read the article, but is one of the factors of the payout whether or not we get CarPlay??

This guy gets this forum lol

 

[BigSkies]

Seriously, WTF?

The US is known to have the world's most overpaid CEO's. There's plenty of academic literature demonstrating that overpaid CEO's do not produce better results. Having overpaid CEO's usually has more to do with CEO control over the board (which should be the other way around) than providing value to shareholders.

Let's put these numbers in context. This is $4.6 BILLION dollars.

Of the overpaid CEO's in the first paragraph, not a single one makes more than $200M per year, and only four make more than $100M per year (before this Elon Musk and RJ Scaringe nonsense).

For other points of comparison, Mary Barra makes $29M per year and James Farley makes $24M per year.

RJ is great. Very few people could do what he did. But he sure as hell isn't doing anything worth $4.6B when you could go find MANY highly competent CEO's for $50-$100M per year.

While this doesn't influence my opinion of Rivian products, it heavily influences my opinion of Rivian stock. This is a company run for RJ's benefit and not the stockholders benefit.

 

[DuoRivian]

I've said before that Rivian reads too many pages from Tesla's book. This week Rivian becomes another car company making a go at humanoid robots and now this.

Is a pivot to AI coming too once it becomes impossible to pump the stock by building and selling things?

Agreed that they took a lot from Tesla except manufacturing simplicity. They have too many variants (battery sizes, motor configurations, etc).

 

[DuoRivian]

Seriously, WTF?

The US is known to have the world's most overpaid CEO's. There's plenty of academic literature demonstrating that overpaid CEO's do not produce better results. Having overpaid CEO's usually has more to do with CEO control over the board (which should be the other way around) than providing value to shareholders.

Let's put these numbers in context. This is $4.6 BILLION dollars.

Of the overpaid CEO's in the first paragraph, not a single one makes more than $200M per year, and only four make more than $100M per year (before this Elon Musk and RJ Scaringe nonsense).

For other points of comparison, Mary Barra makes $29M per year and James Farley makes $24M per year.

RJ is great. Very few people could do what he did. But he sure as hell isn't doing anything worth $4.6B when you could go find MANY highly competent CEO's for $50-$100M per year.

While this doesn't influence my opinion of Rivian products, it heavily influences my opinion of Rivian stock. This is a company run for RJ's benefit and not the stockholders benefit.

You can argue that it is in the benefit of stockholders because he only gets this if the stock price increases significantly which benefits stockholders. Now how he does that and whether someone should get $1b plus are different questions.

 

[richguess]

What's wrong with the build quality? On our G2 Tri R1S they got the doors, quarter panels and hood alignment to about 85% of a Ford or Chevy on the 5th try

In all seriousness they better figure out how to have consistent panel/door alignment from the factory on R2. Us EV geeks/early adopters might put up with that shit but the average buyer won't.

That’s me! I had an early order on an R1S but we decided it was just too big. Now awaiting an R2. But an Audi Q6 lurks there, get a lightly used one for $10k+ off by the time the R2 is out. The R2 looks much cooler, the trimotor a rocket ship. But I don’t want to be waiting 3 months for a service appointment.

 

[mkg3]

The rub is that Rivian and RJ decided to reset his existing incentive comp plan to a much lower stock strike price of $15.22.

After the IPO, RJ already had an incentive comp plan that would have made him very rich if the company performed well.

But now, after the stock has fallen so much, the board and RJ decided that the stock hitting IPO levels is unrealistic, so they reset the plan to be much lower/easier and effectively giving him more shares beyond founder shares/options.

Why does he get a second chance to get rich, while the rest of investors who participated at IPO don’t? Effectively, the board is communicating that it no longer thinks rivn can realistically hit IPO levels.

This^^^^^^ 100%

We all have our own opinions on Musk;s packages but Tesla never reduced and reset the target. He met all the first set that no one thought he would. Now the new set that are just as difficult if not harder than before.

As a $TSLA shareholder, I voted for and am glad there is a huge stretch goals for Musk to hit. As a $RIVN shareholder, I am not at all happy to see Rivian lower RJ's expectations and goals.

I would have love to see and supported the incentive compensation increase for RJ, if the targets were INCREASED, and not what they did.

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