Embattled CEO Travis Kalanick officially resigned as Uber’s chief executive on Tuesday.
The news was first reported by The New York Times, which also indicated Kalanick’s decision to step down stemmed from a letter delivered to Kalanick from five of Uber’s major investors. According to the report, one of those investors included venture capital firm Benchmark, which has a seat on Uber’s board.
“I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors’ request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Kalanick said in a statement.
Although Kalanick stepped down as chief executive, he will remain on Uber’s board of directors.
Kalanick’s resignation is yet another dramatic development in a string of recent woes for Uber, which include workplace sexual harassment allegations by a former engineer this February, an investigation led by board member Arianna Huffington, and the departure of multiple executives. Uber’s problems escalated further last week when Kalanick then announced he would take a leave of absence. Days later, board member David Bonderman resigned over a sexist remark made during an all-hands meeting, which was first reported by Yahoo Finance.
For now, Uber will continue to be run by a 14-person committee that includes Liane Hornsey, the Chief Human Resources Officer who spoke at Uber’s all-hands meeting last week and newly-installed SVP of Business David Richter.
At this point, who runs Uber in the longer-term may be anyone’s guess. However the onus could fall on a chief operating officer, which the company has searched for since March and includes candidates such as former Walt Disney Co. COO Thomas Staags.
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JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
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