12 hours ago
A robot car of the General Motors subsidiary Cruise is on a test drive.
Andrej Sokolow | picture alliance | Getty Images
General Motors is laying off roughly half of its employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion on the robotaxi unit since acquiring it in 2016.
"Today, Cruise shared the difficult decision to part ways with approximately 50% of its workforce," Cruise said in an emailed statement. "We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support."
Cruise had nearly 2,300 employees as of the end of last year.
Layoffs were expected at Cruise, however executives previously declined to speculate on the amount. The job cuts were announced in conjunction with the Detroit automaker announcing the completion of Cruise becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary within GM.
About 88% of remaining employees are in engineering or related roles, and impacted employees were given 60 days' notice, according to the company.
During the remainder of their time with Cruise, the affected employees will receive full base pay, as well as eight weeks' severance. Employees who had been with Cruise for more than three years will receive an additional two weeks' pay for every additional year spent at Cruise, the company said.
"While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles," Cruise said.
GM cited the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, capital allocation priorities and the considerable time and resources necessary to grow the business as reasons for its decision to exit the business.
In January 2024, a third-party probe into Cruise revealed that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership were at the center of regulatory oversights and coverup concerns that had plagued the company since October of that year.
The report addressed, in part, controversy that had swirled around Cruise since an Oct. 2, 2024, accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle. Results of the investigation, which reviewed whether Cruise representatives misled investigators or members of the media in discussing the incident, were published months later in a 105-page report.
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