Washington (AFP)
Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi apologized on Monday after he said in an interview that the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in which Ryad admitted responsibility, was a "mistake".
"There can be no forgiveness or forgetfulness of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi and I was wrong to call it + an error +," Khosrowshahi tweeted Monday morning to explain his remarks of the day before in an interview with Axios.
"I said something about the moment that I do not think.Our investors know my point of view for a long time on this point and I am sorry not to have been so clear on Axios", explained the boss of the group.
Saudi Arabia, through its sovereign investment fund, is the fifth largest shareholder in chauffeur-driven car rental and the fund's governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, sits on its board of directors.
Uber's bosses' statements provoked an uproar in the United States, where Khashoggi was collaborating with the Washington Post, and his assassination in atrocious conditions had sparked harsh criticism of Saudi power, including in Congress.
"I think the (Saudi) government said it made a mistake," Khosrowshahi said on Sunday, before embarking on a haphazard comparison.
"This is a serious mistake, but we too have made mistakes in the automatic driving (...) and we are recovering from this error," he added, referring to an incident in which a car Uber had accidentally killed a pedestrian in March 2018.
Taken aback, the Axios journalist questioned the CEO about this comparison between an accident and an assassination. "I think people make mistakes and that does not mean you can never forgive them, I think they took this seriously," Khosrowshahi said.
"The Saudis are like any other shareholder, since we are now publicly traded, anyone can invest, and they are a big investor, as you could be," he told the journalist again. .
Uber's IPO is a fiasco from the point of view of shareholders. Introduced at $ 42, the title was worth less than $ 27 Monday.
Documents filed Friday with the Stock Exchange Constable showed that Uber's boss had sold 21% of his shares for some $ 547 million.
© 2019 AFP