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R.J. Scaringe, Rivian’s 35-year-old CEO, introduces his company’s R1T all-electric pickup and all-electric R1S SUV at Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, November 27, 2018.
Mike Blake | Reuters

Rivian Automotive, the electric vehicle maker backed by Amazon and Ford, priced its IPO on Tuesday at $78 a share, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the sale hasn’t been announced yet. The deal values Rivian at $66.5 billion.

Should underwriters exercise their full purchase option, the company will have a market cap of over $68 billion. The stock will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol RIVN.

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported on the IPO price earlier. A Rivian spokesperson declined to comment.

Last week, Rivian increased the expected price range to between $72 and $74 from a previous range of $57 to $62. At its $78 offer price, Rivian is already worth almost as much as Ford ($79 billion) and General Motors ($85 billion). That’s all before the company has even started generating real revenue.

Rivian said in its prospectus that it will lose up to $1.28 billion in the third quarter, while revenue will range from zero to $1 million. It’s the latest EV company to attract hefty investor capital at a stratospheric price without yet proving that it has a sustainable business model.

Lucid Motors is worth $72.5 billion even though the company just began production of its first cars. Nikola’s market cap was higher than Ford’s at one point last year, despite the company having no revenue. It’s now worth less than $6 billion, after a short-selling firm accused the company of making “an Ocean of Lies.”

Investors are continuously trying to hop on the next Tesla. Elon Musk’s company topped $1 trillion in market value last month and is now the fifth most-valuable U.S. company.

While Rivian is still effectively pre-revenue, the company said in its prospectus that it has a backlog of 55,400 pre-orders for its R1T and R1S electric vehicles. The R1T is a truck that starts at $67,500, and the R1S is an SUV starting at $70,000, according to Rivian’s website.

The company said it expects to fill those orders by the end of 2023. Additionally, Amazon has ordered 100,000 vehicles to be delivered by Rivian by 2030, and the companies plan to have 10,000 new Rivian-Amazon delivery vehicles on the road as early as next year. Amazon is pushing its fleet to renewable energy sources, and said in 2019 that it was purchasing thousands of vehicles from Rivian.

Amazon, which invested more than $1.3 billion into Rivian, owned 22.4% of the company’s Class A shares prior to the IPO. That stake is worth about $12.5 billion at the offer price. Ford owned 14.4% of Class A stock before the offering, a stake now valued at $8 billion.

Rivian says its factory in Illinois has the capacity to produce up to 150,000 vehicles per year. The company had over 6,000 employees as of the end of June.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Annie Palmer contributed to this report

WATCH: Should you believe the Rivian hype?

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above $102,000

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Cryptocurrencies rise to start the week, bitcoin jumps above 2,000

The photo illustration shows the Bitcoin cryptocurrency on November 12, 2024 in Shanghai, China.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

The price of bitcoin leapt back above $100,000 to start the first full trading week of the new year.

The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 4% at $102,234, according to Coin Metrics. The broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, gained more than 3%. Bitcoin and ether are coming off their best weeks since Dec. 6, while Solana had its best week since Nov. 22.

“Overall, we are in a bullish environment and traders appear to be risk-on as we head into the new year,” Mario Jurina, CEO at crypto swaps platform Jumper.Exchange. “With Trump’s election set to be certified today, and January often being a bullish month — six of the past 10 years saw positive price action — it’s no wonder markets are moving upward.”

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Bitcoin rises above $100,000 to start the week

The moves in crypto coincided with a rebound in tech stocks as Nvidia and shares of other chip names jumped. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was last higher by about 1.7%.

Crypto stocks Coinbase and MicroStrategy advanced nearly 6% and 5%, respectively. MicroStrategy Monday morning reported it has purchased another 1,070 bitcoins for about $101 million, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to 447,470.

Activity is coming back into the crypto market after a post-election rally that was driven by promises of a more supportive regulatory environment. The optimism sent prices rocketing for weeks before cooling at the end of the year. The price of bitcoin is expected to roughly double under the new administration this year, with some price predictions, like Fundstrat’s Tom Lee’s, being as high as $250,000.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Amazon’s Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

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Amazon's Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech palooza kicks off

Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on June 01, 2023 in Novato, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Amazon‘s Ring is partnering with fire safety product maker Kidde to launch a connected smoke alarm, the company announced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The companies plan to launch Kidde smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that integrate Ring’s home security technology and can deliver alerts to the Ring mobile app. The Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm with Ring will cost $54.97, while the Kidde Smart Smoke and CO Alarm with Ring will cost $74.97. Both products will ship in April.

As part of the launch, Ring will also roll out a $5-per-month subscription service that gives users access to round-the-clock professional monitoring and emergency dispatchers.

Amazon acquired Ring in 2015 for a reported $1 billion. The home security company is primarily known for its video doorbell devices, which allow users to record activity in front of their homes, though it has expanded to include a portfolio of products ranging from camera-equipped floodlights to flying security camera drones.

Amazon doesn’t disclose unit sales for its Ring division, but Ring and rival home security company SimpliSafe comprise one-fifth of the U.S. market for professional monitoring systems, according to data from market research firm Parks Associates. Ring CEO Liz Hamren, who took the helm from founder Jamie Siminoff in March 2023, told Bloomberg last May that the company “recently” became profitable.

Users aren’t required to subscribe to Ring Home, the company’s program that enables video recording storage and other security features, in order to access the new smoke alarm service.

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn’s bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

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Global chip stocks climb as Foxconn's bumper results show a continuation of the AI boom

Jakub Porzyck | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Global semiconductor stocks climbed on Monday after contract electronics giant Foxconn announced record fourth-quarter revenues, suggesting the artificial intelligence boom has far more room to run.

Hon Hai Precision Industry, which does business as Foxconn internationally, said in a Sunday statement that the company’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled 2.1 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($63.9 billion), growing 15% year-over-year.

Foxconn — which is a supplier to Apple — also set a record, posting the highest fourth-quarter revenue ever in company history, according to the statement.

The firm’s bumper revenue performance was driven by growth in its cloud and networking products — which includes AI servers like those designed by the likes of chipmaker Nvidia — and components and other products segments.

Computing products and smart consumer electronics — which numbers iPhone and other smartphones — saw “slight declines,” Foxconn said.

Shares of several semiconductor firms across Asia, Europe and the U.S. rose, as a result.

In Asia, TSMC hit a record high Monday and closed 1.9% higher in Taiwan.

The largest semiconductor manufacturer globally, TSMC produces chips for the likes of AMD and Nvidia.

Other Asian chip firms also logged share price gains — South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung rose nearly 10% and 4%, respectively.

In Europe, globally critical semiconductor equipment firm ASML saw its shares jump almost 6%, while fellow Dutch chip company ASMI’s stock rose almost 5%. Germany’s Infineon surged more than 6%.

The momentum in semi stocks could last as they have great earnings momentum, says Jim Cramer

Paris-listed shares of European contract chipmaker STMicroelectronics rose nearly 6%.

Stateside, Nvidia got a boost from the Foxconn numbers, climbing 2% in U.S. premarket trading.

Also boosting chip stocks on Monday was Microsoft’s announcement at the end of last week about plans to invest $80 billion in 2025 on data centers that can handle AI workloads.

Microsoft is one of several tech giants splurging on GPUs (graphics processing units) from Nvidia to train and run the most advanced AI models.

AMD, Nvidia’s closest rival, rose 3% in pre-market trading Monday, while fellow U.S. chip firms Qualcomm and Broadcom both climbed almost 2%.

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