The owners at Rivian will likely be having a massive party this weekend following an epic debut on the NASDAQ. Rivian's original IPO was set at $77 billion, putting it in the same league as Ford and GM.
As it turned out, the initial price per share was $78, increasing to $116. That means the company ended up with a valuation of $95 billion. To put that in context, it's the sixth highest valuation in US history.
Rivian is now worth the same as companies like 3M and Lockheed-Martin and worth more than Ford and GM. Rivian's customers will also be celebrating this weekend, as the EV manufacturer set a chunk of shares to the side for its customers.
Amazon, which owns around 20% of Rivian, will also welcome the good news. Amazon initially signed on so Rivian could produce 10,000 EV delivery vans. The extra bit of cash means Jeff Bezos can afford to go to space twice in 2022.
Not everyone was happy, however. Elon Musk threw some subtle shade by tweeting, "Tesla is the only American carmaker to reach high volume production & positive cash flow in past 100 years." Musk has made it quite apparent that he doesn't see a future for Rivian, which is hardly surprising considering the two companies are currently busy with an extensive legal battle.
It could also just be sour grapes, considering that Rivian is the first manufacturer in automotive history to produce an electric pickup successfully. At the same time, the Cybertruck remains nothing but an empty promise with no clear introduction date.
To be fair, Tesla is hardly struggling. It made the news recently by hitting a trillion-dollar valuation, which puts it quite a few steps above Rivian. CEO Elon Musk made the news again last week after asking his 63 million Twitter followers whether he should sell 10% of his stock. Tesla shares fell by 16% but made a recovery. The sale did indeed go through, netting Musk $5 billion. Musk is paid in stock options, and the last time he cashed out was 2016, when he sold $600 million worth of stock.
It will be interesting to see how this battle plays out going forward - The original EV success story versus the new guy on the block that happens to have the backing of Amazon and Ford.
It's not difficult to figure out why so many people bought into Rivian. The R1T has been receiving rave reviews, and Rivian wants to produce 100,000 units before the end of the year. This success comes despite Rivian losing vast amounts of cash in recent years, which was discovered in the paperwork Rivian had to file in order to go public.