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Cruise, the self-driving unit of General Motors, will lay off nearly a quarter of its employees, or 900 workers, after the automaker said it was reining its spending on driverless operations.
The layoffs come two months after an incident in San Francisco in which a hit-and-run victim became pinned under a Cruise vehicle and then was dragged 20 feet to the side of the road. As a result, California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate driverless cars in the state. The company has since grounded its entire fleet nationwide. (It had vehicles in Arizona, Texas, and Florida as well.)
In response, several top executives have left the company, including co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt and chief product officer Dan…