Kyle Vogt has announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he has decided to step down as the Chief Executive Officer of Cruise following backlash and halted operations over a recent hit-and-run accident involving a Cruise autonomous vehicle (AV).
The accident occurred in San Francisco in early October where a pedestrian was hit by a human-driven car and then proceeded to be run over and dragged for 20 feet by a Cruise self-driving vehicle supposedly as a result of the AVs poor AI judgement. The accident led to the California Department of Motor Vehicles to revoke permits of the company’s AV deployment, a mass amount of scrutiny from the public, and eventually a pause on all Cruise AV operations.
Today I resigned from my position as CEO of Cruise. (1/5)
— Kyle Vogt (@kvogt) November 20, 2023
San Francisco became the first US city this year to allow driverless taxis to transport passengers without the supervision of humans behind the wheel, as known as Level 4 AVs.
Vogt wrote on X that the “last 10 years have been amazing […] Cruise is still just getting started, and I believe it has a great future ahead,” adding that he is planning to spend time with his family and “explore some new ideas”.
There has been no officially named successor of the Chief Executive position, but Cruise have announced that its executive VP of engineering, Mo Elshenawy, would immediately assume the role as president and chief technology officer alongside Craig Glidden, who will serve as co-president as well as continuing in the role of chief administrative officer for the foreseeable future.
