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Chamath Palihapitiya, the outspoken enterprise capitalist who fronted a number of particular objective acquisition firms on the peak of final 12 months’s funding frenzy, will step down as chairman of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic (SPCE) – Get Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc Report spaceship group.
Palihapitiya, 45, will go away the group instantly, the corporate mentioned Friday, and can be changed by Evan Lovell on an interim foundation.
Palihapitiya, who can also be a component proprietor of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, introduced one more SPAC deal — online game specialists Akili Interactive — to market solely final month. He additionally courted controversy earlier this 12 months when he instructed Jason Calacanis’s ‘All-In” podcast that the internationally-recognized mistreat of Muslim Uyghurs by the Chinese language authorities was one thing that “no person cares about”.
“Chamath was instrumental within the launch of Virgin Galactic as a public firm and, as our inaugural chair, his deep and astute insights have been extremely useful to each me and the corporate as we now have grown and strengthened our enterprise basis,” mentioned CEO Michael Colglazier. “We’ve all the time identified the time would come when he would shift his focus to new initiatives and pursuits. I’m grateful for every part Chamath has achieved for our firm and need him all the very best.”
Virgin Galactic Holdings shares had been marked 4.33% decrease in early Friday buying and selling instantly following information of Palihapitiya’s departure to point a gap bell value of $8.62 every.
Late final 12 months, Virgin Galactic delayed plans for the launch of its industrial house journey service to the fourth quarter of this 12 months after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration accomplished an investigation into the group’s maiden flight — which carried billionaire Branson and 5 different Virgin Galactic into house on July 11 — after it deviated from an outlined airspace path on its descent.
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