Cruise will eliminate nearly a quarter of its workforce, a staggering 900 positions, marking one of the steepest contractions yet for the embattled autonomous vehicle developer.
The San Francisco company confirmed the cuts Thursday. Documents filed with California’s Employment Development Department reveal that 535 of those jobs sit within the state, spread across offices in San Francisco, South San Francisco, and Sunnyvale, plus 98 remote workers stationed elsewhere in California.
Roughly 375 of the affected employees worked in San Francisco proper. The company’s South Beach headquarters absorbed the largest single hit.
A WARN notice, mandated by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, accompanied the layoffs. Those workers won’t return to their desks, but they’ll remain on payroll for 60 days. None belong to a union.
The cuts swept through management ranks too. Directors, senior staffers, and dozens of engineers lost their roles, including people working in specialized divisions like Sensor Platforms, Fleet Sustainability, Prediction, and Perception.
Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s president and chief technology officer, delivered the news via an internal email later posted publicly. He framed the reductions as a pivot toward a leaner operation, one focused on delivering service in a single city before any broader expansion.
That retrenchment follows a brutal autumn for the General Motors subsidiary. A Cruise robotaxi struck and dragged a San Francisco pedestrian 20 feet on Oct. 2, after another vehicle had already knocked her down. California’s DMV suspended Cruise’s permits on Oct. 24, accusing the company of hiding portions of crash footage from investigators. Cruise paused all driverless testing nationwide two days later.
Federal and state regulators have since opened probes. Co-founder Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO on Nov. 19. A day before Thursday’s layoff announcement, nine additional senior leaders were forced out, including key figures from Legal, Government Affairs, Commercial Operations, and Safety and Systems.
Elshenawy and Craig Glidden, a veteran GM attorney, now serve as co-presidents. The company has scrapped plans to enter a dozen new cities in 2024.
Laid-off employees will receive at least 16 weeks of pay. Cruise also committed to distributing 2023 bonuses despite the firings.
The company declined to specify which city will anchor its narrowed commercial strategy.
