Rivian’s decision to award its CEO, RJ Scaringe, a potential $4.6 billion compensation package over the next decade represents a profound statement about how America’s new industrial economy is defining success. The plan echoes Tesla’s historic compensation deal for Elon Musk, linking executive wealth not to steady value creation, but to speculative market milestones and rapid expansion goals.

The company, celebrated for its electric SUVs and pickups, faces a challenging road ahead: shrinking EV tax credits, a slowing consumer market, and recent layoffs affecting nearly 600 employees. Yet in this moment of constraint, the board has chosen to reward uncertainty with extraordinary wealth in the hands of one individual — a familiar pattern in the era of “superstar capitalism.”

The new pay package lowers the bar for stock-price growth compared with Rivian’s previous plan, resetting targets to $40–$140 per share, down from the unattainable $110–$295 range. In theory, this aligns leadership incentives with shareholder returns; in practice, it risks amplifying short-termism, prioritising market optics over long-term sustainability and shared prosperity.

Tesla’s success has clearly inspired Rivian’s boardroom thinking. The logic is that a bold incentive drives bold outcomes. But history suggests otherwise: the health of a company — and an economy — depends less on billionaire motivation than on broad-based innovation, fair labour practices, and sound industrial policy. The EV revolution will not be won by singular visionaries alone, but by systems that reward collective progress over speculative gain.

Rivian’s wager, then, is not just on Robert Scaringe — it is on a philosophy of growth that still equates leadership with outsized personal fortune. Whether that vision leads to durable prosperity or deepened inequality will depend on how the company and the country choose to define success in this next electric age.