Electric automaker Rivian is laying off around 6 percent of its 14,000 employees, or around 800 people, Amy Mast, a spokesperson for the company, confirmed in an email. The company made the decision in part to speed up development on future versions of its electric trucks and SUVs, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday we announced the difficult decision to reduce the size of the Rivian team by approximately 6%,\u201d Mast wrote. \u201cThis decision will help align our workforce to our key business priorities, including ramping up the consumer and commercial vehicle programs, accelerating the development of R2 and other future models, deploying our go-to-market programs and optimizing spend across the business.\u201d<\/p>\n