Former Uber Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Travis Kalanick recently sold a third of his Uber stocks to Softbank, a Japanese tech company. This was after Softbank acquired one-fifth of the shares of the ride-hailing service. Kalanick's 2.9% stock was sold for $1.4 billion.
Kalanick was relieved of being the company's CEO last July. This was in large part because of the numerous scandals that plagued the ride-hailing service under his management.
The ex-CEO was once one of the richest people of the world, basing on stock value. However, once Softbank acquired most of Uber, the ride-hailing service's value dropped from $70 billion to $48 billion.
Carl Tobias, a chair in law at the University of Richmond School of Law, had ideas as to why Kalanick made this major decision. He speculated that Kalanick "may have had enough of being criticized about Uber, so maybe he is ready to move on."
Tobias' opinion highlighted Kalanick's previous decision, as well— the ex-CEO originally planned to sell half of his stock. However, it turned out that there was a limit to how much stock Japanese company Softbank can acquire. And so Kalanick opted to sell just a third of his 10% Uber share instead.
Reuters has tried to reach out to Kalanick's spokesperson, but the latter declined to comment. Likewise, Softbank and Uber cannot be reached for comment on the issue.
In the wake of Kalanick's rule as CEO, Uber still faces at least five separate criminal lawsuits. The company also has an upcoming trial against Alphabet, Google's parent company. Uber allegedly stole trade secrets from Alphabet.
In any case, now that Kalanick is out, it is up to the new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to face these concerns and to lead the company.
