Rivian’s CEO has explained why he and the company aren’t concerned about U.S. President Donald Trump’s electric vehicle (EV) policies, including the repeal of the $7,500 federal tax credit.
During a conversation with Automotive News at Rivian’s opening of a new Space showroom in San Francisco on Thursday, CEO RJ Scaringe said that the company plans to remain a top competitor pushing U.S. electrification, with or without the tax credit or similar battery production incentives. Scaringe highlighted that the credit would be repealed equally for all automakers under the Trump administration, noting that he didn’t start the electric vehicle (EV) maker even knowing what the future landscape for subsidies might look like.
“I don’t think we’re particularly worried about any of it because whatever happens will be equally applied to all,” Scaringe said during the opening event. “I started the company with the view of making highly compelling products and none of my decision to start Rivian had anything to do with what the policy was going to look like.”
However, the Rivian CEO did signal that legacy automakers could be more likely to fund combustion engine development when considering short-term profitability for the next two to three years, though he says this would be mistake for the industry long-term.
“I think in the end it’s sort of like there’s small speed bumps along the way and it’s on us to respond to whatever that environment is,” the CEO said. “We’re really talking about U.S. leadership in the future of technology as it pertains to transportation. This is not a political thing. It’s not like the left wants to move to electrification. It’s that the future of transportation will be electric.”
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“The challenge with some of these short-term changes, for the world and for the U.S. leadership in technology, is that it will cause some manufacturers to invest less in electrification,” Scaringe notes. “And I think that’s probably good for Rivian from a competitive landscape, but bad for the world. If you’re optimizing purely for profitability in the next 2 to 3 years and you’re a traditional legacy manufacturer, you can see how you can very easily make a spreadsheet case of ‘Let’s double down on combustion or hybrids. I think that is a big miscalculation for the long term.”
The news also comes after Rivian gained a $6.6 billion commitment from the Department of Energy to help fund the construction of its upcoming factory in Georgia in November, officially closing on the loan on January 16. Amidst some speculation that the Trump administration could try to cancel the loan, Scaringe highlights that the agreement should already be set in stone, with the company subject to several conditions.
“We signed a legally binding agreement with the Department of Energy, to be clear,” Scaringe adds. “And, of course, that loan has a whole host of conditions that we negotiated over the last couple years.”
Rivian delivered 51,579 last year, marking a slight increase from 50,122 vehicles in 2023. The company also announced a major partnership and $5 billion investment deal with Volkswagen in June, and recent reports suggest that other manufacturers are also considering similar software supply deals with the EV company.
Meanwhile, Rivian and many other small EV makers are still attempting to turn production into profits, with the manufacturers still reporting substantial losses as they attempt to scale output. Many Tesla followers point out how close to bankruptcy the company came during its Model 3 ramp-up, and CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly echoed details about how difficult production is.
Similarly, however, Musk has also aired concerns about the potential for Rivian, Lucid and other growing EV makers to go bankrupt if they aren’t careful with their finances.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla rivals Rivian and Lucid receive harsh prediction from Elon Musk
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Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
