by Stephen Rivers
- GM product chief Sterling Anderson is seen as a possible future CEO.
- His success depends on fixing GM software, autonomy, and EV profits.
- Mary Barra and Mark Reuss stay in charge with no succession timeline.
General Motors is looking to the future and planning ahead. Some of its biggest targets surround software innovation, EV profitability, and autonomy. To help make those goals a reality, it has brought in Sterling Anderson, a former Tesla executive and Aurora co-founder with a strong track record in exactly those areas.
If he manages to lead GM to success in those targets, he could very well be the next CEO of the entire brand.
Read: GM’s Mary Barra Promises Cleaner Engines, But Looser Rules Fuel More Gas Guzzlers
Anderson officially joined the team in June of 2025, and according to people familiar with the matter, he did so with the CEO’s chair in mind. That’s according to Bloomberg, which also received official comment from GM stating that no succession plan is currently in place.
Anderson himself also declined to engage in CEO chatter, saying his focus remains squarely on his current responsibilities. “My focus is on what I’m doing. I’ve got plenty work to do where I am,” he said.
Succession Speculation Inside GM
Current GM CEO, Mary Barra, turns 64 soon and is under no obligation to hang it up. GM President Mark Reuss, 62, is also very much in the mix, underscoring that Anderson’s potential rise, if it happens at all, is likely years away.
That all said, Anderson could make all the sense in the world if he really does manage to successfully help GM achieve EV profitability while pushing its software and autonomy far ahead of where they stand today.
Anderson is 42 and before GM, he was chief product officer at Aurora Innovation, where he helped steer the company away from robotaxis toward fully autonomous freight trucks now operating in Texas. Before that, he led development of Tesla’s Model X and played a major role in the early Autopilot system.
From Tesla to Trucks
He ultimately left Tesla following disagreements over how Autopilot was being developed and deployed, a technology that has since drawn scrutiny from federal safety regulators. So far, his strategy at GM has been to listen first and change later.
As he put it, “You simply cannot afford to break a company and hope to pull the pieces back together. What you want to do, and what I told Mark was my intent, is understand how it works and then start to surgically make changes across the company to where they needed to be made. And that’s been the attack, that’s been the approach.”
Expect several changes over time, including more software subscriptions, SuperCruise-style autonomy taking on urban environments, and changes to EV supply chains and materials. If those changes lead to success over time, he could be the next person at the top of one of the nation’s largest automakers.