Behind Uber’s Messy CEO Search Is a Divided Boardroom

Things over at Uber Technologies Inc. remain insane. First, I reported Tuesday that Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.’s Meg Whitman was a candidate for Uber’s vacant chief executive officer job. Then Thursday afternoon, I said General Electric Co.’s Jeffrey Immelt was also on the shortlist. By Thursday night, Whitman wrote on Twitter that she wouldn’t be Uber’s next CEO. “We have a lot of work still to do at HPE and I am not going anywhere,” she wrote.

Whitman’s tweetstorm was a disappointment to some people over at Uber. She put out her statement just as Uber’s board was starting its quarterly meeting. The company hopes to lock in a CEO by early September. The big question is whether the board can get on the same page. Getting a majority of the eight-person group to support a single candidate is looking to be difficult.