#HiringsAndFirings

Earlier this week, former Hyundai executive Derrick Hatami appeared to be a corporate sacrificial lamb — slaughtered by the Korean automaker to appease the angry sales gods. His abrupt departure from the company seemed to be an under-the-rug firing. However, his former employer quickly reached to us to explain Hatami had left on his own accord, wishing him well. While that’s often the boilerplate explanation when an executive is forcibly ousted from a large company, Hyundai wasn’t lying.

Hatami appeared, as if by magic, on Volkswagen of America roster less than 48 hours after news of his exodus broke. The current assumption is that his apparent firing from Hyundai was, in fact, a poaching maneuver undertaken by VW. Otherwise, this man has the most incredible interviewing skills on planet Earth.

Uber Technologies Inc. has fired Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of the company’s legal battle with Google and Alphabet’s self-driving division Waymo. The company confirmed the departure Tuesday, after weeks of Levandowski remaining silent as the court attempted to make sense of what had taken place between the two companies (as well as Uber’s own internal investigation).

The Waymo’s lawsuit alleges Levandowski stole proprietary information relating to their self-driving vehicles, which he then handed to Uber. In May, U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated that he believed there was evidence to suggest Uber had gained trade secrets belonging to Google and that Levandowski should be removed from his lead engineering role. However, the ride-sharing firm claims he was taken off autonomous development in April.

This week, China’s LeEco canned the majority of its North American workforce and we assumed the layoffs spelled trouble for its business interests at Faraday Future. Not so, claims the automotive startup. In an emailed response to our earlier article, Faraday says LeEco’s decision to massively scale back its U.S. operations will not affect its daily goings-on or hinder the development of the FF91 electric vehicle.

Faraday Future spokesman Rich Otto also wanted to ensure us the company has no layoffs of its own planned. Obviously, the grim situation over at LeEco had everyone wondering if that was it for FF. But the aspiring electric automaker has come back with a resounding not as far as we’re concerned.