DETROIT – Former Apple exec Dave Richardson has left General Motors, the automaker confirmed to the Detroit Free Press ― one week after appearing onstage at a media event in New York to outline the company’s software-defined strategies.
GM’s Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson now oversees the majority of GM’s software and services engineering team to better align with product development, GM confirmed on Friday, Oct. 31.
Richardson served as senior vice president of software and services engineering at GM starting in 2023 and spent his tenure in California.
“We’re changing the structure of the Software and Services Engineering team to accelerate how we develop and deliver technology experiences to our customers and the company,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly shared in a statement. “As part of this change, we are bringing together vehicle software engineering and Global Product under one organization, led by Sterling Anderson. David Richardson has elected to step down from his role at GM, and we thank him for his contributions.”
Anderson, who co-founded Aurora Innovation in 2017, also worked at Tesla on the Model X and Autopilot software.
As first reported by Automotive News, some of the team’s operations Richardson previously oversaw — cybersecurity, IT and data engineering — will temporarily report to CEO Mary Barra.
Richardson also oversaw the company’s software platforms, digital products and advanced driver-assistance systems. Software is poised to be a major profit driver for GM, as the company expects it to generate as much as $25 billion in revenue by 2030.
Richardson and other senior leaders unveiled a series of AI-enabled initiatives at a news media event Oct. 22 in midtown Manhattan that the company called “GM Forward.”
This story appeared in the Detroit Free Press
