Cruise LLC Chief Executive Officer Dan Ammann had a slate of meetings on Dec. 16 when he got an early afternoon call from
General Motors Co. CEO Mary Barra. She told Ammann he was being
dismissed from the robotaxi startup that GM controls through a majority stake, say people familiar with the events.
What seemed abrupt to outsiders and people working at Cruise had been building for months. The two executives didn’t agree on how to focus the breakthrough self-driving technology that the Silicon Valley unit is preparing to launch with a taxi service. Barra and GM’s board were pushing a grand vision that included transferring that knowledge to create luxury Cadillacs, self-driving cars sold at retail or delivery vehicles for GM’s new electric-van business. The opportunities, and their potential value, were immense.