Travis Kalanick is cutting his last ties with Uber, announcing plans to leave the board at the end of this year.
“At the close of the decade, and with the company now public, it seems like the right moment for me to focus on my current business and philanthropic pursuits,” Kalanick said in a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Kalanick cofounded Uber in 2009, but he was pushed out of his CEO role by the board in 2017 after a series of scandals. Among them: allegations of widespread sexual harassment and an otherwise hostile workplace culture at the company, revelations about how Uber deceived regulators, a $20 million FTC fine for puffing up earnings claims to drivers, a lawsuit over alleged trade secret theft from Google-owned Waymo, and dashcam footage of Kalanick berating an Uber driver.
Kalanick had been foreshadowing his decision to leave the board before announcing it. As Forbes reported last week, he’s sold 90% of his shares in the company over the past month and a half.
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