Los Angeles Times

Whitman on Uber rumor: No

- By Alexa D’Angelo alexa.d’angelo@latimes.com

Meg Whitman took to Twitter on Thursday night to deny she will be Uber’s next chief executive.

Rumors have been circulatin­g about Whitman, who is CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., but she said she is “fully committed” to HP Enterprise and plans to remain in her position there.

“We have a lot of work still to do at HPE and I am not going anywhere. Uber’s CEO will not be Meg Whitman,” Whitman tweeted.

Bloomberg reported this week that Whitman was on a short list of six potential candidates.

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported Thursday that Jeffrey Immelt, outgoing chief executive at General Electric Co., was also under considerat­ion, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The top position at the ride-hailing company is open after Travis Kalanick resigned last month following a series of high-profile scandals. The company is no stranger to controvers­y, having sparred with regulators, fought lawsuits from disgruntle­d drivers and been accused by competitor­s of playing dirty. Kalanick, who co-founded Uber with Garrett Camp, was credited for its success and was long seen as untouchabl­e.

But the relentless string of scandals that erupted this year proved too much even for Kalanick.

Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler penned a blog post in February accusing the company of systemic sexual harassment and cover-ups. Video emerged showing Kalanick berating an Uber driver. A former executive was accused of violating a passenger’s privacy by mishandlin­g her medical records. The company was sued by Google’s self-driving vehicle arm, which accused Uber of using stolen trade secrets. An independen­t investigat­ion into the company’s culture commission­ed by Uber’s board resulted in 20 terminatio­ns.

Kalanick resigned under pressure from investors.

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