Is Uber's Faith In Travis Kalanick Faltering?

Uber’s board of directors is debating a three-month leave of absence for Uber founder CEO Travis Kalanick, reported the New York Times.

The rumor comes as company leadership voted unanimously to adopt all recommendations made by former attorney general Eric Holder regarding improving the company’s culture.

Holder was brought on to lead a probe into the company’s harassment claims and overall poor environment following a viral sexual harassment claim by former engineer Susan Fowler.

Besides Fowler's claim, company has been plagued by a string of scandals — most recently, a leaked memo from 2013 about proper sexual conduct with co-workers in which Kalanick seems to joke about that and vomiting, according to Recode.

For a recap of Uber’s biggest 2017 scandals, click here.

Will Kalanick Get Kicked?

One of the recommendations included dismissing Emil Michael, the company’s senior vice president of business and Kalanick’s right-hand man.

If Kalanick were to also depart from the company, even temporarily, it would leave Uber without a CEO, chief operations officer, chief financial officer, chief managing officer, senior vice president of business and SVP of engineering. The company also needs to fill the 20 positions recently left vacant due to harassment claims.

Kalanick proposed taking a leave of absence last month for personal reasons. A boating accident killed his mother and hospitalized his father.

Dan Primack tweeted, as of yet, that would be the only reason for Kalanick to take off.

It is my understanding that @travisk will NOT be taking a leave of absence (besides continuing to deal w/ family issues).

— Dan Primack (@danprimack) June 12, 2017

At 11:52 a.m. ET, Reuters Tech tweeted:

BREAKING: Uber CEO Kalanick likely to take leave of absence, no final decision on future - source pic.twitter.com/2UMg7RjfZC

— Reuters Tech News (@ReutersTech) June 12, 2017

The website istravisstillceo.com appeared Monday to track whether Kalanick still holds the role. As of 12:10 a.m. ET, it said “Yes… for now.”

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