Jon Franklin, Rivian‘s Vice President and Corporate Controller, has left the company, he said on LinkedIn this week, a month after Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough announced her own exit.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s been 4.5 years, but my time at Rivian has come to a close,” Franklin wrote.
He did not say where he is going. “Stay tuned for an update soon as to where I’m headed next,” he wrote.
Franklin did not give a reason for leaving or a last working day. The EV maker has not announced the departure or named a successor.
‘Coaching, Guidance and Partnership’
Franklin singled out three finance leaders in his post, including the two people who have served as Rivian’s Chief Accounting Officer since its IPO and its departing CFO.
“I am especially grateful to Jeffrey Baker, Claire Rauh McDonough and Sreela Venkataratnam (among countless others, too many to name!) for their continuous coaching, guidance and partnership that made a lasting impact on me,” he wrote.
“Working alongside such a dedicated and generous group of people has easily been the highlight of my career,” Franklin wrote. “I am leaving as a proud and lifelong supporter of this team, the product and the mission.”
Baker was Rivian’s first Chief Accounting Officer as a public company and resigned effective July 27, 2024, when McDonough took on the principal accounting officer role on an interim basis.
Venkataratnam, a former Tesla finance executive, succeeded him on March 10, 2025 and is Rivian’s principal accounting officer.
McDonough named Franklin in January 2025 among about 30 Rivian employees she thanked for work on the company’s $6.6 billion Department of Energy loan for its Georgia plant, in a LinkedIn post.
Rivian renegotiated the loan down to $4.5 billion in April, while raising the planned initial capacity of the Georgia plant to 300,000 vehicles a year from 200,000.
Derek Mulvey, now set to become interim CFO, was also on that list.
4.5 Years at Rivian
Franklin joined Rivian in March 2022, four months after its initial public offering, as Senior Director of Corporate Accounting, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He was promoted to VP of Accounting in December 2023 and to VP, Corporate Controller in April 2024.
Before Rivian, he spent more than 15 years in PwC’s assurance practice, mostly in Detroit, and left as an Assurance Director.
A corporate controller typically runs a company’s accounting close, financial reporting and internal controls. His tenure spanned the period in which Rivian fixed weaknesses in its financial controls.
Rivian identified material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting while preparing its 2021 accounts. They related to access and segregation-of-duties controls and to IT general controls over the systems used in financial reporting.
The weaknesses had not been remediated at the end of 2022, when KPMG, Rivian’s auditor, “expressed an adverse opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting,” according to Rivian’s 2022 annual report.
Rivian said in its 2023 annual report that it had remediated the material weaknesses.
CFO Transition
McDonough notified Rivian on August 24 that she would resign effective October 30 to become Chief Financial Officer of GE Vernova, the company said on August 27.
Her resignation “is not the result of any disagreement with the Company on any matters related to its financial reporting, operations, policies or practices,” Rivian said in its filing.
Mulvey, Rivian’s VP of Finance and a former J.P. Morgan banker, is expected to become interim CFO when she leaves, while Rivian searches internal and external candidates for a permanent successor.
Mulvey joined Rivian in 2021 and “has worked closely with CEO R.J. Scaringe and Ms. McDonough,” the company said. McDonough also came to Rivian from J.P. Morgan, where their tenures overlapped.
Franklin’s exit comes as Rivian ramps up production of its R2 SUV and approaches the end of its third quarter on September 30.
It extends a run of changes in Rivian’s senior finance ranks.
VP of Investor Relations Tim Bei left for Redwood Materials in 2025, and Chip Newcom took over the role that year.
