Former Cruise CEO Dan Ammann joins ExxonMobil

Dan Ammann, the New Zealand native who served as CEO of autonomous vehicle company Cruise since 2019, has moved on to ExxonMobil, where he will be leading a new business focused on commercializing low-emission business opportunities in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and low-emission fuels, according to a statement from ExxonMobil.

Ammann, the former president of General Motors, abruptly stepped down as CEO of Cruise in December, to be formally replaced by Cruise's co-founder Kyle Vogt in early March. He will take up the position of president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions effective May 1, replacing Joe Blommaert who is retiring after 35 years with the company.

Ammann was president of GM from 2014 to 2018, and before that, he served as CFO from 2011 to 2014. The executive was front and center of GM's initial investment and acquisition of Cruise, of which the automaker owns an 80% stake after buying out SoftBank's equity ownership last week.

When he took over as CEO, Cruise had grown from a small startup with 40 employees to more than 1,000. He pushed the company to expand, setting ambitious goals, like his most recent plans for Cruise to have tens of thousands of purpose-built Origins on roads in the U.S. over the next few years. Other targets in the past have come up short, like the plan to launch a commercial robotaxi business in 2019.

Now, Ammann has other enthusiastic goals for ExxonMobil.

"We'll be significantly moving the needle toward net zero in the most hard-to-decarbonize industries, in an economically viable way, and with urgency," Ammann wrote in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. "To do this we'll draw on the deep resources and know-how that exist inside of ExxonMobil today, together with the best external ideas and an initial $15 billion capital commitment that the company has made to build this business and reduce emissions."