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Top Execs Depart Floundering Electric Vehicle Startup

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UPDATE: This piece has been updated with comment from a Rivian spokesperson.

Several executives at electric vehicle startup Rivian have departed the company in the past several months as the company weathered a difficult 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

Rivian confirmed the departure of Vice President of Body and Interior Engineering Randy Frank and Vice President in Charge of Parts Purchasing Steve Gawronski around the start of the year, according to the WSJ. The company missed its target of producing 25,000 vehicles in 2022 by more than 600 vehicles after a supply chain crisis forced the company to have unplanned production line shutdowns totaling 70 days this year, the WSJ reported.

A Rivian spokesperson confirmed the departures to the Daily Caller News Foundation, but characterized them as routine. The spokesperson noted that the company had actually expanded its c-suite personnel with the hiring of Diane Lye as the company’s first chief information officer in October, and Anisa Costa as the company’s first chief sustainability officer.

Other positions held by departing executives had either been filled or were in the process of being filled, according to the same Rivian spokesperson.

Since the company’s initial public offering in November 2021, when shares closed at roughly $100 per share to make the company worth $86 billion, shares have fallen more than 80% to roughly $16.45 at time of writing, according to Google Finance. Electric vehicle startups struggled in 2022, with Nikola, Lucid and Canoo all posting roughly 80% declines in stock prices, while Elon Musk’s electric vehicle powerhouse Tesla saw prices tumble roughly 70%.

Other recently departed executives included strategy team senior director Patrick Hunt, who joined the company in 2015 and left toward the end of 2022, and General Counsel Neil Sitron who left in September 2022 after joining the company in 2018, the WSJ reported.