SAN FRANCISCO — The CEO of Cruise announced on Sunday he was stepping down from the role.
“The last 10 years have been amazing, and I’m grateful to everyone who helped Cruise along the way,” CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt posted on X. “The startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities, with each ride inspiring people with a small taste of the future.”
Vogt’s resignation comes less than a month after the autonomous car company paused its driverless robotaxi operations nationwide. The pause happened two days after the California DMV suspended its driverless testing permits in the state.
The suspension happened due to an incident in October where a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian that had been struck by another vehicle in San Francisco.
Cruise’s permit for testing of the vehicles with a safety driver inside was not affected by the suspension.
Cruise also recently announced layoffs among its contract employees who worked on the ride-hailing service’s fleet of autonomous vehicles.
The workers laid off included support staff who clean, charge and service the robotaxis, as well as customer service workers.
The layoffs came after its fleet of vehicles was recalled for a software update, which was prompted by the same incident that saw its testing permit suspended.
Cruise, headquartered in San Francisco, is a subsidiary of General Motors and also operates in Phoenix, Arizona, and in the Texas cities of Austin and Houston.
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