Uber Is Said to Favor Whitman for CEO as Immelt Withdraws

Uber Is Said to Favor Whitman for CEO as Immelt Withdraws

Uber is moving closer to picking a new CEO, who will fill the seat left vacant for more than two months since the abrupt ouster of co-founder Travis Kalanick, according to Bloomberg.

The board is holding daily meetings to interview remaining candidates and could cast a final vote soon, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Despite repeatedly denying the prospect that she would take the job, Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman is a board favorite after presenting her vision for the ride-hailing company to the group, said two of the people.

General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt was another top contender and met with the board in recent days, the people said. But Immelt, 61, pulled himself out of consideration in a Twitter post, following a similar tack to Whitman. “I have decided not to pursue a leadership position at Uber,“ Immelt wrote, adding that he has “immense respect“ for the company and its founders.

Immelt lacked support from some of Uber’s major backers. Privately, Immelt groused that directors were in constant conflict, and he felt particularly at odds with venture capital firm Benchmark, which is Uber’s largest shareholder, said a person familiar with his thinking. Benchmark led the charge to remove Kalanick as chief and is suing him for fraud.

Whitman, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for California governor in 2010 before taking over Hewlett Packard, was an early front-runner for the Uber CEO job. But Whitman, 61, rebuffed advances by Uber’s search committee after her candidacy was made public.

Since then, Whitman has maintained publicly that she will not take the job, including in an interview last week with the Wall Street Journal. However, she met in person with members of the board and has emerged as the likely pick, two people familiar with the matter said. Uber is weighing at least one other person, whose name couldn’t be learned.