Rivian Automotive Inc. is expected to price its initial public offering (IPO) later today, November 9, 2021. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan currently stand as Rivian’s underwriters for the company’s debut. And based on filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Rivian is looking to enter the public markets in a big way — and it is setting its ambitions very high.
Target Valuation
Rivian has disclosed that it is targeting a valuation above $65 billion in its IPO, with shares priced between $72 and $74. Such a valuation is ambitious, as it would make Rivian’s market cap just a bit lower than veterans such as General Motors ($84.82 billion) and Ford Motor Company ($79.65 billion), the latter being a key investor in the truck maker. Similar to fellow electric vehicle maker Tesla, which currently reached a market cap above of over $1 trillion, Rivian’s valuation target is founded on the idea that the company may see a meteoric rise in the coming years.
If Rivian’s shares end up selling at the top of their marketed range, the company could make history as the seventh-biggest US IPO on record, according to Bloomberg. It would also overtake longtime players in the auto segment, such as Japanese carmakers Honda Motor Co., which has a market cap of $53 billion, and French automaker Renault SA, which is valued at a conservative $11 billion.
The Finances So Far
Rivian’s S-1 filing with the SEC has provided a glimpse of the company’s finances so far. Just as expected, and similar to fellow electric vehicle makers that are just starting out, Rivian is currently burning cash, with heavy investments in R&D and high operating costs. This is likely due to the fact that the company is still learning the ropes when it comes to mass-producing its three vehicle offerings, one of which has an order for 100,000 units from Amazon, the world’s premier e-commerce site.
Rivian currently employs over 8,000 people across multiple facilities in Arizona, California, Michigan, Illinois, Vancouver, Canada, and the UK. And as the company approached the production of the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV, its losses grew. Rivian posted a net loss of $994 million from January to June 2021, more than double the $377 million net loss it posted for the first half of 2020. Rivian’s R&D expenses are also on the rise, with the company spending $683 million in Q1 and Q2 2021. In comparison, its R&D cost for 2020 stood at $766 million. Despite this, Rivian still has about $3.6 billion in cash on its balance sheet.
What Analysts are Saying
Rivian is quite unique among EV startups today because its already has a sure customer in Amazon, which has ordered 100,000 units of an all-electric delivery van. That being said, New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu stated in a note on Monday that Rivian may end up facing a “natural ceiling” of 300,000 to 400,000 units per year, partly due to the price range of its consumer vehicles, the R1T pickup truck and the R1S SUV. The R1T currently starts at $67,500 for its base model, while the R1S starts at $70,000.
“Above $70,000, the global addressable market for Rivian’s SUV and pickup is less than 1.5 million units, and it will be a crowded space,” Ferragu wrote.
Ivan Drury, a senior analyst at Edmunds, highlighted that Rivian may face an uphill climb when ramping its first vehicles, especially considering that the chip crisis is still ongoing. “It’s difficult enough for established automakers, let alone a new one. Couple that with this new issue the entire industry is dealing with, the chip crisis, that just adds another layer of complexity,” Drury noted.
Rivian’s Production Plans
Recent reports have noted that Rivian is currently focusing its resources on delivering the first batch of its Amazon delivery vans. This makes sense considering the volume of orders it has received from the e-commerce giant, but this strategy could also result in the R1T and R1S being ramped at a more deliberate pace. So far, Rivian has noted that it has received just over 55,000 pre-orders for the R1T and R1S. And since starting deliveries of the R1T, the company has only delivered 156 units of the all-electric pickup truck, “nearly all” of them to Rivian employees.
Rivian’s SEC filing has provided a bit more detail about the R1T and R1S’ rather deliberate ramp. According to the document, the company expects to fill its pre-order backlog of approximately 55,400 R1 vehicles by the end of 2023. Previous reports also note that Rivian is expected to deliver the first 10,000 units of its Amazon delivery vans by the end of 2022, with the entire 100,000-unit order being completed by the end of the decade.
Legal Challenges to Date
Similar to other automakers, Rivian is also involved in some legal challenges. Among the more notable ones involve fellow EV maker Tesla, which has filed a suit against Rivian last year over the alleged theft of intellectual property related to recruitment, bonus and compensation plans for sales personnel, and manufacturing project management systems. A later lawsuit from Tesla also alleged that the truck maker was acquiring core technology related to its upcoming 4680 cells, which was deemed by the Silicon Valley-based company as the “most essential element for any electric vehicle.”
More recently, Laura Schwab, who was the first female President in luxury automaker Aston Martin’s history, also filed a suit against Rivian over alleged gender discrimination. Schwab served as Rivian’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing during her tenure with the company. But according to the former Rivian executive, she was routinely excluded from meetings despite her experience in the auto industry, and her warnings about the R1T and R1S’ pricing and public targets were largely ignored. Finally, Schwab noted that she was terminated by Rivian just before it went public, which effectively made her lose “millions of dollars in unvested equity on the eve of the company’s IPO.”
Conclusion
With electric vehicle maker Tesla joining the trillion-dollar club, numerous investors are now looking towards the “next Tesla.” And while not all EV startups have succeeded — hydrogen truck company Nikola is a good cautionary tale — companies like Rivian and Lucid Motors do seem to have the makings of a legitimate, and potentially profitable long-term business. This was something highlighted by Pitchbook senior mobility analyst Asad Hussain, who noted that “Rivian’s premium market valuation reflects its ownership of the entire value chain and freedom to innovate without dealing with stranded assets. Between Rivian and Lucid, the market finally has credible candidates for ‘the next Tesla.”
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Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.
Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.
Starlink just unveiled Mini 2, its next-gen portable dish.
Quick-swap battery, up to 4.5 hrs per charge
USB-C power
Built-in Wi-Fi
Online in about 60 secondsPreorders are open now. https://t.co/QawqgbswrQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 10, 2026
The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.
The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.
Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.
Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.
For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.
While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s $24B Starbase supercomputer plan slipped past a key roadblock
SpaceX wants a Starbase tax break for a $24 billion gas plant and supercomputer campus.
SpaceX is asking its own company town for a tax break on a $24 billion natural gas power plant and supercomputing facility at Starbase, Texas, and the land it picked sits just outside the reach of a data center moratorium that took effect in neighboring Brownsville last week.
A City of Starbase public hearing notice says SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility” on roughly 444 acres between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. The $24 billion figure covers only the initial phases, and the notice leaves room for future expansions. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement and a related economic development agreement at a 7 p.m. hearing on December 9. The notice does not disclose the size or length of the abatement, or how much computing capacity the site would hold.
The location has a history. Over the summer, SpaceX asked Brownsville to remove the tract from its city limits and offered $220 million for water and wastewater projects in return. Brownsville approved the move in August, and Starbase later annexed the land. Brownsville’s own 90-day pause on data center applications took effect last week, and had the tract stayed inside the city, the project likely would have needed a different home.
The power side is already in front of state regulators. SpaceX has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for air permits covering 35 mobile gas turbines producing roughly 750 megawatts, according to Politico, which also noted that two of the three Starbase commissioners voting on the incentives are SpaceX executives.
Building its own plant lets SpaceX skip the Texas grid. Gov. Greg Abbott paused new data center grid connections in August pending an audit, but a facility that generates its own electricity does not need one. The air permit still has to clear the TCEQ, where Abbott also ordered a halt on data center permits.
The bigger test arrives in January. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Abbott last week, has said she will block data center approvals until the legislature passes new protections, and she has already asked state officials to hold off on any sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX until she is sworn in. Tesla and SpaceX shares both fell the day after the election, and Musk’s first reaction on X was “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
That line points to Starmind, SpaceX’s orbital compute constellation. Musk has said terrestrial compute will be “peanuts compared to orbital compute” and expects monthly orbital deployments to pass ground deployments around the end of 2028, as Teslarati reported. Until then, SpaceX still needs gigawatts on the ground. It ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute, is targeting 2.5 to 3 GW by the end of this year and wants at least 10 GW more in 2027. Its existing Colossus sites around Memphis already run on gas turbines and face a lawsuit from residents over emissions.
Local reaction is split. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network has announced a protest, citing air quality, water use and energy bills, while some Brownsville residents told the Tribune they welcome the jobs. SpaceX did not respond to the Tribune’s questions about the project.
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity
