Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick is leaving the company’s board of directors, the ride-hailing company announced today. Kalanick will officially resign from the board as of December 31, to “focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors,” according to a press release issued by Uber.
Kalanick, who was forced out as Uber CEO and eventually replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi through shareholder action, with support of the board, in 2017, has been in the process of selling off his considerable ownership stake in the company through successive sales of his shares. Just last week, Kalanick sold around $383 million in shares and reduced his overall stake to less than 10%, per an SEC filing.
UPDATE 7:35 AM PT: In fact, it looks like Kalanick has actually sold all his remaining stock, with the SEC filings to show up on the web likely after the Christmas holiday, per the FT.
The share sales started when Uber’s restriction on the sale of stock for private investors and employees expired six months after the company’s IPO. Kalanick at one time owned a total of 98 million shares in the company. Kalanick has since made a play in the on-demand food industry that his former company helped jump-start with CloudKitchens, a startup focused on picking up cheap properties and turning them into restaurant operations without a counter, seating or walk-in service designed exclusively to fill demand for courier-based restaurant delivery apps.
