Elon Musk: Rivian execs ‘need to live in the factory’ to survive

Elon Musk gave Rivian a bit of advice on how to survive past their reported forecasted bankruptcy in roughly six quarters, and it includes shades of what Tesla was forced to do to keep its doors open.

Earlier today, we reported that Musk had a bit of advice for Rivian while criticizing Lucid. According to forecasts that Musk shared, Rivian will be able to survive for roughly six more quarters, or about a year and a half, before it will be forced to close its doors due to bankruptcy.

However, Musk believes Rivian is able to save its company and continue along with developing EVs, starting with the R2 platform that is set to launch in early March and will be more affordable than the current R1 lineup.

Musk said that Rivian must “cut costs massively” and that executives should commit to contributing to the production lines around the clock from here on out, or they will have no chance of surviving:

They need to cut costs massively and the exec team needs to live in the factory or they will die

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2024

Musk did the same thing during Tesla’s “production hell” phase of the Model 3 ramp, living in the Fremont factory in Northern California. He said in other instances that he also lived in Gigafactory Nevada.

The Tesla CEO said he did not want to be vacationing and living lavishly while employees were committed to keeping the company afloat. He hoped it would inspire employees to give it everything they had.

He also said in an interview with Bloomberg in 2018 that he did not want his situation to be better than the employees:

“The reason I slept on the floor was not because I couldn’t go across the road and be at a hotel. It was because I wanted my circumstances to be worse than anyone else at the company. Whenever they felt pain, I wanted mine to be worse.”

Rivian may be in a good position moving forward as it has been able to trim its losses with every passing quarter. It also announced it would trim its workforce in an effort to save money, so it has already worked to accomplish one of Musk’s suggestions.

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