A few days after Cruise, General Motors’ embattled driverless car unit, recently announced that it will pause all public road operations, co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt has announced his resignation.
In his announcement on X, the 38-year-old exec expressed that “the last 10 years have been amazing,” while reminding us that “the startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities.”
As to what Vogt is doing next, he plans on taking a break first to “explore some new ideas.” Vogt had previously co-founded video platforms Justin.tv, Twitch and Socialcam.
General Motors has since promoted Mo Elshenawy, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Cruise, to President and CTO of its robotaxi subsidiary. No replacement has been named for the vacant CEO spot.
Vogt’s resignation comes after General Motors installed its very own Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy (and already a Cruise board member), Craig Glidden, as Chief Administrative Officer of the autonomous vehicle firm last week. Cruise’s legal, communications and finance teams now report to Glidden.
General Motors has yet to appoint a permanent Chief Safety Officer, though with the help of an independent engineering consulting firm, it continues to conduct an expanded safety probe on the infamous freak accident.
The collision on October 2 involved a female pedestrian being hit by a human driver and landed in the path of a Cruise robotaxi, which ended up running her over and dragging her 20 feet. Both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise continue to be suspended, affecting a fleet of 950 robotaxis.
