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Meg Whitman will leave HP Enterprise CEO job early next year

In July, she tweeted "I am not going anywhere."

Sean Hollister Senior Editor / Reviews
When his parents denied him a Super NES, he got mad. When they traded a prize Sega Genesis for a 2400 baud modem, he got even. Years of Internet shareware, eBay'd possessions and video game testing jobs after that, he joined Engadget. He helped found The Verge, and later served as Gizmodo's reviews editor. When he's not madly testing laptops, apps, virtual reality experiences, and whatever new gadget will supposedly change the world, he likes to kick back with some games, a good Nerf blaster, and a bottle of Tejava.
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Sean Hollister
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When Uber suddenly needed a new boss, HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman's name lit up. The former HP CEO, eBay CEO and one-time California gubernatorial candidate often seems to be on the shortlist for such things.

But no, she tweeted: "We still have a lot of work to do at HPE and I am not going anywhere."

That was four months ago. But Tuesday, HP Enterprise announced Whitman will step down from her CEO post on Feb. 1 in favor of current HPE president Antonio Neri. Neri will join the company's board of directors as well.  

While Whitman will stay on the company's board of directors, it seems like her public role has been diminshed: from CEO and chairwoman of HP, to chairwoman of HP Inc. and CEO of HP Enterprise, and now simply a member of HPE's board.

(Hewlett-Packard split into two companies in 2014: HP Inc, the company's consumer-facing computer division, and HP Enterprise, which offers servers, software and services. Whitman originally served as chairwoman of HP Inc. as well, but stepped down in July 2017.)

"Now is the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins of HPE. I have tremendous confidence that they will continue to build a great company that will thrive well into the future," Whitman said in a statement.

Update, 3:30p.m. PT: On the company's earnings call, Whitman answered a follow-up question about why she's stepping down now: "[T]he next CEO of this company needs to be a deeper technologist, and that's exactly what Antonio is. He's been with the company 22 years. He is a trained computer engineer and has worked in almost every business of this company. So I just think it's the right thing."

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