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Cruise founder and CEO Kyle Vogt has resigned from his role at the autonomous vehicle venture owned by General Motors, according to a company statement sent to CNBC on Sunday.

Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cruise CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt has resigned from his role at the autonomous vehicle venture owned by General Motors, according to a company statement sent to CNBC on Sunday.

Mo Elshenawy, who previously served as executive vice president of engineering at Cruise, will now serve as president and CTO for Cruise, the company said. 

Vogt confirmed his resignation Sunday night in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He did not give a reason for the resignation, and said he plans “to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas.”

The departing CEO also offered words of encouragement, writing: “Cruise is still just getting started, and I believe it has a great future ahead. The folks at Cruise are brilliant, driven, and resilient. They’re executing on a solid, multi-year roadmap and an exciting product vision. I’m thrilled to see what Cruise has in store next!”

Vogt’s resignation follows a string of missteps by Cruise.

As CNBC previously reported, the company issued a voluntary recall affecting 950 of its robotaxis, and suspended all vehicle operations on public roads following a series of incidents that sparked criticism from first responders, labor activists and local elected officials, especially in San Francisco. 

In one serious incident in October, the human driver of another vehicle struck a pedestrian in San Francisco at night, tossing her into the path of a Cruise self-driving car, which then drove over and dragged her.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s deployment and testing permits for its autonomous vehicles after that incident. “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits,” the regulators said in a statement at the time.

In orders of suspension the California DMV issued to Cruise, the regulators accused the company of failing to give a transparent account of what happened during the pedestrian collision.

Cruise CEO takes a spin with Jim Cramer in an autonomous car

Separately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Cruise to determine whether its automated driving systems “exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway,” according to a filing on the agency’s website.

GM purchased Cruise in 2016. It then brought on investors such as Honda Motor, Softbank Vision Fund and, more recently, Walmart and Microsoft. However, last year, GM acquired SoftBank’s equity ownership stake for $2.1 billion.

GM execs, including CEO and Chair Mary Barra, had hoped the startup would be ramping up a driverless transportation network this year, and hoped Cruise would play a notable role in doubling the company’s revenue by 2030.

In October 2021, GM said it expected “new businesses” such as Cruise and its BrightDrop commercial EV business to grow from $2 billion to $80 billion during that timeframe.

According to its most recent quarterly update, GM has lost roughly $1.9 billion on Cruise between January and September 2023, including $732 million in the third quarter alone.

Barra also serves as chair of the Cruise board of directors. Former Tesla and Lyft executive Jon McNeill, a member of GM’s board of directors since 2022, was appointed vice chairman of the self-driving unit’s board following Vogt’s resignation.

Alex Roy from transportation consultancy Johnson & Roy told CNBC, “Responsibility starts at the top. If Cruise is going to survive, and they have great technology there, the CEO had to go.”

“I suspect at least one more high level exec will have to resign — anyone who made the call to obfuscate or omit information in communication with the California DMV,” he said. “In my opinion, Cruise has been too slow in taking steps to rebuild trust with staff, regulators and the public. Executive departures are table stakes.”

Vogt’s resignation comes roughly two years after he was reappointed as CEO, following an unexpected departure by Dan Ammann, a former GM executive, in December 2021.

Ammann, a former investment banker, began leading Cruise in 2019 after serving as GM’s president and chief financial officer before that. He was credited with the 2016 acquisition of Cruise.

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Tesla shares pop 8% as post-election rally continues

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Tesla shares pop 8% as post-election rally continues

Elon Musk embraces Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, 2024.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

Tesla shares popped 8% on Monday, continuing to ride a postelection rally as President-elect Trump, closely allied with CEO Elon Musk, begins to set up his presidential cabinet.

Analysts at Wedbush reiterated their “outperform” rating on the stock, joining earlier sunny outlooks reacting to Tuesday’s results. Tesla recently reclaimed its $1 trillion market cap after surging nearly 30% last week.

“We are raising our price target on Tesla to $400 from $300 as we believe the Trump White House win will be a gamechanger for the autonomous and AI story for Tesla and Musk over the coming years,” the Wedbush analysts wrote.

Musk’s wealth rocketed past $300 billion in the days since Trump’s decisive electoral win, further cementing his place as the richest man in the world and joining the wave of gains across the technology and crypto sector since post-election trading began.

It’s unclear whether Musk, who spent at least $130 million on Trump’s campaign, will receive an official title in the second Trump White House or will influence policy decisions from his inner circle.

Either way, Musk stands to earn potentially billions from new government contracts with his companies, on top of the $19 billion SpaceX has already been awarded. Some or all of the 19 known ongoing federal lawsuits and investigations into his companies may begin to wind down entirely.

“It is difficult to judge how Elon Musk’s increasingly close public relationship with President Trump could benefit Tesla, but this needs to be monitored closely,” analysts from Bank of America wrote in a note last week, raising their TSLA price target from $265 to $350.

Trump has said previously he may cut the federal $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit, and those credits have historically helped to drive sales of Tesla vehicles.

At one of his final campaign rallies, Trump suggested Musk could be put in charge of “government efficiency,” and he was present on Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy two days ago.

CNBC’s Michael Bloom, Annie Palmer and Lora Kolodny contributed reporting.

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Silicon Valley’s General Catalyst makes first investment into Saudi Arabia through fintech Lean Technologies

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Silicon Valley's General Catalyst makes first investment into Saudi Arabia through fintech Lean Technologies

Lean Technologies CEO discusses Silicon Valley's General Catalyst first investment in Saudi Arabia

Silicon Valley venture capital firm General Catalyst has made its first investment in Saudi Arabia through fintech startup Lean Technologies, which just closed a Series B round worth $67.5 million.

General Catalyst has $30 billion in assets under management and has backed major U.S. tech companies like Snap, Stripe and AirBnb. Lean Technologies’ fundraising round also saw participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office, and Arbor Ventures, among others, bringing the Riyadh-based firm’s total funding to over $100 million to date, according to a Sunday statement from the company.

For three of those investors — General Catalyst, Stanley Druckenmiller and Bain Capital — this investment is their first in the kingdom.

What this signifies, Lean Technologies CEO and co-founder Hisham Al-Falih told CNBC, is that “this is a huge vote of confidence for their view of the growth trajectory that Saudi is on and the potential that it has over the next decade.”

The kingdom is pushing ahead with Vision 2030, its initiative to diversify its economy away from oil and create new jobs and industries for the overwhelmingly young Saudi workforce. Now more than ever, the kingdom wants foreign capital and direct investment coming into Saudi Arabia rather than flowing out of it, allowing for local employment, knowledge transfer and training, and the development of a variety of sectors.

Fintech plays a major role in this evolution, Al-Falih stressed.

“We are just getting started. I feel like there’s so much more investment that needs to go into deepening our tech stack, to expanding our payment solutions, to expanding our data services, to deepening our partnerships with banks in the region and with the support and enablement of the central banks in the region as well,” Al-Falih said. “If you look at the region’s growth over the last three to five years, it’s been phenomenal, but there is still so much more room for growth.”

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Xavierarnau | E+ | Getty Images

Revenue from the fintech industry in the Middle East and North Africa amounted to $1.5 billion in 2022, and could grow to be between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion by 2025, according to a report by McKinsey & Company. Fintech revenues in the region are less than 1% of banking revenues, Al-Falih said citing the report, compared to 4 to 5% in more mature markets like the U.S. and U.K.

“We are almost an order of magnitude away from where we could be in terms of the fintech revenue and its participation to the economy,” the Lean Technologies CEO said. “And that gives us the wind behind our sales and the motivation to keep building those tools and the picks and shovels, if you will, to enable those bold innovators to achieve their dreams.”

Lean Technologies specializes in providing the financial infrastructure that allows secure data-sharing between bank accounts and applications. Regulated by Abu Dhabi Global Markets in the United Arab Emirates, Lean works to facilitate A2A (account-to-account) payments, meaning funds transferred directly between two bank accounts rather than via intermediaries like payment processors or credit card networks.

Saudi sovereign wealth fund's pivot to domestic investment will help accelerate diversification: minister

The company works with major local clients like Emirati state telecoms firm e& and ride-hailing super app company Careem, with over $2 billion in total processed volumes, according to its press release issued Sunday.

In Saudi Arabia, Lean’s “launch of its data solutions under the Saudi Central Bank’s regulatory sandbox has impacted clients across various industries, including insurance, lending, and marketplaces, verifying nearly 1 million bank accounts,” the release said.

As of September of this year, Saudi Arabia’s fintech startups have raised over $1.84 billion in venture capital investments since 2018, according to Monsha’a, the kingdom’s General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises. KPMG in September reported that in 2023 alone, Saudi fintechs attracted $791 million — a 231% leap from the previous year.

The number of active fintech startups in the country since the launch of its “Fintech Saudi” initiative in 2018 has reached 216 and they employ a more than 6,500 people, Monsha’a said. The Kingdom aims to establish 525 new companies in the fintech sector by 2030.

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FTX sues crypto exchange Binance and its former CEO Zhao for $1.8 billion

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FTX sues crypto exchange Binance and its former CEO Zhao for .8 billion

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

The estate of collapsed crypto exchange FTX has filed a suit against Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao in an effort to wrest back at least $1.76 billion, citing a “fraudulent” share deal.

In a Sunday filing with a Delaware court, FTX cites a 2021 transaction in which Binance, Zhao and others exited their investment in FTX, selling a 20% stake in the platform and a 18.4% stake in its U.S.-based entity West Realm Shires back to the company.

The FTX estate alleges that the share repurchase was funded by FTX’s Alameda Research division through a combination of the company’s and Binance’s exchange tokens, as well as Binance’s dollar-pegged stablecoin.

“Alameda was insolvent at the time of the share repurchase and could not afford to fund the transaction,” the suit claims, labeling the deal agreed with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried — who’s now serving a 25-year sentence over fraud linked to the downfall of his exchange — a “constructive fraudulent transfer.”

Binance denies the allegations, saying in an emailed statement: “The claims are meritless, and we will vigorously defend ourselves.”

The litigation marks the latest escalation of tensions between two of the biggest names in the crypto space, after the meteoric collapse of FTX rocked the industry.

Once a $32-billion empire, FTX disintegrated into bankruptcy when it was unable to keep pace with a torrent of customer withdrawals, triggering a plunge in the crypto markets.

The market fallout peaked in November last year, when Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven criminal fraud counts relating to the bankruptcy of the exchange and theft of customer funds. That same month, Binance’s Zhao pleaded guilty to charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to put in motion an effective anti-money laundering program and for breaching U.S. economic sanctions.

In addition to recovering funds, the latest lawsuit also accuses Zhao of “a series of false, misleading and fraudulent tweets” that it alleges “triggered a predictable avalanche of withdrawals at FTX,” eventually leading to the exchange’s collapse.

The suit cited a Nov. 6 post on X in which Zhao said, with reference to FTX token FTT: “Liquidating our FTT is just post-exit risk management, learning from LUNA. We gave support before, but we won’t pretend to make love after divorce.”

In another post cited, he said: “As part of Binance’s exit from FTX equity last year, Binance received roughly $2.1 billion USD equivalent in cash (BUSD and FTT). Due to recent revelations that have came to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books.”

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