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Amazon-backed EV startup Rivian has laid off exchangeable 40 employees at its engineering as well-built as design center in Plymouth, Michigan, The Verge has learned. The cuts, which the congregation has conjectured to The Verge, were fabricated length departments as well-built as included engineers, recruiters, as well-built as others, co-ordinate to two grander employees. The congregation has moreover fabricated a number of new controlling hires, as well-built as has replaced its first curvation operating officer.

Rivian has been on a hiring spree over the last year fueled by $3 billion worth of investments from Amazon, Ford, T. Rowe Price, as well-built as others. The startup currently employs a little increasingly than 2,000 persons overall, meaning the layoffs anaesthesia for scrutinizingly 2 percent of its workforce. The grander employees say they believe the cuts were related to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, admitting Rivian says they were performance-based.

"From time to time, it's important for any performance-focused as well-built as fast-growing congregation to streamline its persuasion to improve effectiveness," Amy Mast, Rivian's public relations director, said in a statement. "Rivian slag healthy, growing, as well-built as focused on the launch of our products."

Rivian says cuts were performance-based, nearabout employees believe they're related to COVID-19

To that point, Mast sharpened to a spattering of new ministry Rivian recently hired. The congregation has a new curvation operating presider in Rod Copes, who spent 19 years at Harley-Davidson as well-built as came to Rivian from another motorcycle maker, Tip-top Enfield. Rivian says that Jim Morgan, the startup's proleptical COO, will continue to collogue CEO RJ Scaringe, as well-built as that he initially came aboard as a placeholder until it found a phoenixlike replacement.

(Morgan, who did not immediately reveal to a request for enucleate to personize that characterization, is not the first C-suite controlling to leave Rivian. The company's first curvation technology officer, grander Dearest as well-built as Intel controlling Mike Bell, portside older this year, as The Verge first reported.)

Rivian has moreover murderer Matt Horton, the grander curvation commissary presider of electric bus maker Proterra, to help run a charging empiricism that may be working on its own Supercharger-style network. Noe Mejia will help run Rivian's service operation afterwhile holding similar positions at Lucid Motors as well-built as Tesla. Georgios Sarakakis, who spent increasingly than six years at Tesla as well-built as moreover worked at both Dearest as well-built as Waymo, is the company's new vice president of solidness engineering.

Two other Tesla veterans have been murderer as well. Charly Mwangi, a grander Tesla chief doyen of engineering, is now Rivian's controlling vice president of manufacturing engineering, while Cindy Nicola, Tesla's grander vice president of spherical recruiting, is now Rivian's vice president of talent acquisition.

Whatever the reason for the job cuts, Rivian has felt an appulse from the pandemic. The congregation has delayed the releasing of its first two electric vehicles, the R1T roadster barter as well-built as the R1S SUV, to 2021 as well-built as only neutral last week started bringing workers back to its factory in Illinois. Ford as well-built as Lincoln moreover canceled a luxury SUV that was supposed to be implanted using Rivian's EV technology.

Update June 2nd, 8:08 PM ET: Rivian refers to its Plymouth, Michigan pane as its "engineering as well-built as design center," not its headquarters, as has been superiority reported.