Rivian insiders reported new transactions with the SEC this week, as institutional investors continue filing their quarterly portfolio updates.
Board member Aidan Gomez — appointed a year ago — purchased 18,000 shares on the open market on May 15, while Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough sold 5,544 shares under a pre-arranged trading plan.
Gomez’s purchase at $13.97 per share — totaling roughly $251,460 — is the first open-market insider buy at Rivian since at least August 2025, based on a review of the transaction history.
The AI expert is the co-founder and CEO of Cohere.
At the time of his appointment, Rivian‘s founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said Gomez had demonstrated exceptional leadership in the AI industry and that his expertise would support the company as it integrates new technologies into its products, services and manufacturing.
McDonough’s sale on May 18, at a weighted average price of $13.43 per share, generated approximately $74,480 in proceeds.
The shares were sold at prices ranging from $13.24 to $13.78, the Form 4 filed with the SEC showed.
The transaction was executed under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on September 2, 2025, as disclosed in the company’s quarterly report for the three months ended September 30, 2025.
McDonough has served as Rivian‘s CFO since before its November 2021 IPO.
The insider transactions come as Rivian shares trade near their lowest levels in nine months.
The stock has shed more than 43% from its 52-week high of $22.69, reached in December 2025 following the company’s inaugural AI & Autonomy Day event.
Rivian‘s stock closed at $12.90 on Tuesday, down 3.4% on the session.
As of press time, the company’s stock was trading 2.4% higher at $13.21 on Wednesday’s market session.
Rivian is preparing to begin customer deliveries of its R2 SUV next month — a vehicle management says is key to reaching profitability, after the company has burned through more than $24 billion in cash.
Tax Withholding
Both filings also disclosed routine tax-related share withholdings tied to restricted stock unit vestings on May 15.
In Gomez’s case, 3,752 Rivian shares were withheld by the company to cover tax obligations on the vesting of 6,961 RSUs.
After the open-market purchase and the tax withholding, Gomez directly held 54,232 shares.
McDonough’s filing showed a significantly larger withholding of 38,640 shares tied to the vesting of 75,939 RSUs.
After the tax withholding and the subsequent open-market sale, she directly held 902,630 shares.
Both withholdings were valued at $14.52 per share, based on Rivian‘s closing price on May 14.
Tax-related share dispositions are automatic and mandatory, and do not represent voluntary decisions to sell.
Insider Selling Pattern
With the exception of Volkswagen Group’s $1 billion strategic equity investment on April 30 — which was part of its milestone-tied joint venture commitment rather than an open-market transaction — Gomez’s buy is the only acquisition by a Rivian insider recorded in the filings since at least last summer.
During that period, multiple insiders have been regularly disposing of shares, though the majority of those dispositions have been tied to tax withholding obligations on vesting RSUs rather than voluntary open-market sales.
RJ Scaringe has filed share dispositions on a near-biweekly basis throughout 2026, typically involving 17,450 shares per transaction at prices ranging from $15.00 to $19.55.
Most of those transactions have been conducted under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 trading plan.
As of his most recent filing on April 14, when he sold shares at $16.17, Scaringe held approximately 1,001,138 shares directly.
McDonough has filed seven separate dispositions since August 2025.
Her largest voluntary sale during that stretch was 27,133 shares in February at $16.80 per share, followed by 10,245 shares in April at $18.00.
All of her open-market sales have been executed under the same 10b5-1 trading plan adopted in September 2025.
Director Peter Krawiec sold shares in December 2025, while director Rose Marcario filed a proposed sale of 7,183 shares in February 2026.
Open-market purchases by company insiders are generally viewed as a signal of confidence, as they represent voluntary investments with personal capital.
Pre-arranged 10b5-1 trading plans, by contrast, are set up months in advance and execute automatically regardless of the stock’s direction.
Institutional Ownership
The insider filings come amid Rivian‘s institutional investor updates.
As of the latest Nasdaq data, the company had 935 institutional shareholders collectively holding roughly 777 million shares.
Volkswagen Group overtook Amazon as Rivian’s largest single shareholder in early May after deploying an additional $1 billion equity tranche under its up-to-$5.8 billion software joint venture commitment.
The German automaker now holds 209.8 million Class A common shares, representing a 15.9% stake.
Amazon, which first invested in Rivian in 2019, continues to hold its unchanged 158.4 million-share position.
Among institutional investors, Goldman Sachs disclosed a record Rivian stake of 8.9 million shares as of March 31, after purchasing more than 3 million shares during the first quarter.
BlackRock increased its position by 7.0% to nearly 54 million shares in the same period.
Not all institutions have been adding shares, however.
Two Sigma Investments cut its Rivian holdings during the first quarter, while Citigroup trimmed its stake by 12.1% to 8.7 million shares.
UBS reduced its holdings by 26.4% to just below 10.3 million shares.
