Rivian’s CEO is taking a big marketing role in the shake-up ahead of the R2 launch

Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe is taking on a new role at his company as part of a restructuring ahead of the launch of the R2 SUV next year, which includes laying off more than 600 employees.

Scaringe told employees in an email Thursday that he will serve as Rivian’s chief marketing officer on an interim basis as the company searches for someone to fill the position for the first time. The head of Rivian’s Marketing Experiences team and the company’s creative studio lead will now report directly to Scaringe, according to a copy of the email obtained by TechCrunch.

It’s not clear how many direct reports Scaringe actually has — a spokesperson declined to comment — though he told the Decoder podcast last year that it was a “significant number.”

The cuts announced Thursday are the third set of layoffs at Rivian this year. The company let go of about 140 employees on its manufacturing team in June, as TechCrunch first reported at the time. Rivian made a similar size reduction in sales and service operations in September. These layoffs follow a significant 10% reduction in Rivian’s workforce in early 2024.

“I am writing to share a difficult update,” Scaringe said in an email Thursday to Rivian employees. “With the launch of R2 in front of us and the need to profitably scale our business, we have made the very difficult decision to make a number of structural adjustments to our teams. These changes reduce the size of our team by approximately 4.5%.”

The “changing operating backdrop” — a nod to the loss of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles, tariff increases from the Trump administration, and general headwinds against clean energy projects in the U.S. — has forced the company to “rethink how we scale our go-to-market functions,” Scaring said.

In addition to Scaringe considering Rivian’s marketing and creative departments, the company is also working to “simplify” the customer experience, according to the email. Rivian is relocating its Vehicle Operations team and merging it with the company’s service department, Scaringe said. Meanwhile, Rivian’s deliveries and “mobile operations” will now take place within the sales department.

These structural changes are being made “to ensure the purchasing experience is as seamless as possible with a single point of contact throughout the entire sales process through delivery,” he wrote.