The driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, Cruise, has announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer, Marc Whitten, a veteran of the video game industry. This comes eight months after the previous C.E.O. resigned amidst safety issues with the company’s vehicles.
Whitten, who was most recently an executive at the video game technology company Unity, will take over on July 16. He brings with him a wealth of experience, having been a founding engineer at Xbox and a general manager at Amazon.
Cruise has faced a tumultuous year, with California regulators ordering the company to pull its fleet of vehicles off the road in October following a series of traffic mishaps, including a pedestrian being dragged underneath a Cruise car in San Francisco. Since then, Cruise has laid off a quarter of its workforce and pushed out nine executives.
The company’s new leadership team will also include Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s president and chief technology officer, and Craig Glidden, Cruise’s president and chief administrative officer. They were appointed by Cruise’s board in November to lead the company following the resignation of the previous C.E.O., Kyle Vogt.
Whitten expressed his excitement about joining Cruise, stating, “It is an opportunity of a lifetime to be part of this transformation. The team at Cruise has built world-class technology, and I look forward to working with them to help bring this critical mission to life.”
G.M. acquired Cruise for $1.6 billion in 2016, and the company has also hired Nick Mulholland, who previously worked for the electric car maker Rivian, as its new chief communications and marketing officer. Elshenawy and Glidden will continue with the company and report to Whitten.
In a separate announcement, G.M. appointed Grant Dixton, also from the video game industry, as its new executive vice president and chief legal and public policy officer. Dixton previously held a senior leadership role at Activision Blizzard.
The future of Cruise under its new leadership remains to be seen, but with Whitten at the helm, the company is poised for a fresh start and a renewed focus on safety and innovation in the driverless car industry.
