#executive-departures

#executive-departures

Leaders at Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab confronted the startup's cofounder and former CTO, Barret Zoph, over an alleged relationship with another employee last summer, WIRED has learned. That relationship was likely the alleged "misconduct" that has been mentioned in prior reporting, including by WIRED. To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, WIRED is not naming the employee in question. The individual, who worked in a different department than Zoph and was in a leadership role, is no longer at the lab.

Ray Sefo is the latest executive to part ways with the PFL. | Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com Ray Sefo will no longer be working for Professional Fighters League. The longtime PFL president and the organization have parted ways, though further details regarding Sefo's departure are currently unknown. The news was first reported on "The Ariel Helwani Show" on Tuesday. Sefo served as president of both World Series of Fighting and the PFL, but his role appeared to become much less prominent in recent months.

Farrell joined TikTok nearly six years ago, starting on the company's Latin America marketing team before shifting to its operations division and later taking over as global creator lead in late 2023. In December, she helped organize TikTok's first awards show for creators at the Hollywood Palladium theater in Los Angeles. Prior to TikTok, Farrell worked in marketing at Booking.com and Google.

The Uber Technologies Inc. veteran overseeing its safety operations is set to depart, setting off a second round of executive changes this year at a time when the rideshare giant is being scrutinized in court over the measures it takes to protect riders. Gus Fuldner, a senior vice president for safety and core services who has been with the company for more than a decade, will leave the company in January, he said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

The software team at General Motors has now lost three top executives in the past month as the automaker - with its new chief product officer at the helm - combines its disparate technology businesses into one organization. Baris Cetinok, senior vice president of software and services product management, is leaving the company effective Dec. 12, the company confirmed to TechCrunch.

Both Stewart and Thelwell were heavily criticised following a dismal start to the season for Rangers, which led to the dismissal of manager Russell Martin in October. Martin was removed from his role having won just five of his 17 games in charge in all competitions. At that point, Rangers were in eighth in the Scottish Premiership and had endured the ignominy of failing to get through to the league phase of this season's Champions League.

Driving the news: A number of towering figures in the field have grown dissatisfied with their Big Tech jobs and opted to start up their own ventures. Meta AI chief scientist Yann LeCun - who has clashed with Meta leadership over research direction - is the latest star heading for the exits. Meta says it plans to partner with LeCun's new startup, which will focus on models with real-world reasoning.

Bach, who also served as Lucid Motors' Senior Vice President of Product, has been with the company since 2015. He joined Lucid after spending three years as Tesla's Director of Engineering, where he worked alongside Lucid Motors' former CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson. Bach spent more than ten years at Volkswagen before Tesla. Lucid Motors' Vice President of Quality, Jeri Ford, is retiring as well. She will be replaced by Marnie Levergood, who is coming to the company from Scout Motors.

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, now has a new chief financial officer: Former Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous sources. Armstrong, who previously advised Musk during the Twitter deal, will oversee the finances of both xAI and X, which were merged in April, the report said. The former banker has been working with xAI for several weeks and was only recently appointed as CFO, the FT added.

At xAI, some staff have balked at Musk's free-speech absolutism and perceived lax approach to user safety as he rushes out new AI features to compete with OpenAI and Google. Over the summer, the Grok chatbot integrated into X praised Adolf Hitler, after Musk ordered changes to make it less "woke." Ex-CFO Liberatore was among the executives that clashed with some of Musk's inner circle over corporate structure and tough financial targets, people with knowledge of the matter said.