Qualcomm’s Matt Grob has left the company. Grob was Qualcomm’s executive vice president of technology and was a member of Qualcomm’s executive committee.
“Big thanks to everyone at Qualcomm for 27 amazing years, for so many lifelong friendships, for fantastic experiences and unique opportunities,” Grob wrote on Twitter. “Thank you all and best wishes to Qualcomm.”
Added Grob: “Up next: I intend to #keepinventing.”
Grob didn’t immediately respond to FierceWireless' requests for details.
“There are no changes to Qualcomm’s senior executive team, although Matt Grob, EVP of Technology, recently announced his decision to leave the Company,” Qualcomm said in a statement.
Qualcomm didn’t immediately address questions from FierceWireless on whether Grob’s departure was part of the layoffs that the company began last month. Qualcomm started a round of layoffs in the middle of April, and according to a report from Bloomberg the action will eliminate a total of 1,500 jobs in California.
Qualcomm also didn’t immediately respond to questions about what would happen to Grob’s position.
Grob was among Qualcomm’s nine top executives, sitting alongside the likes of President Cristiano Amon, CFO George Davis and HR chief Michelle Sterling.
Grob joined Qualcomm in 1991 as an engineer, and some of his initial work focused on Qualcomm’s CDMA technology. Grob took over Qualcomm’s R&D system engineering group in 1998, and he headed the company’s Corporate R&D group starting in 2006. From 2011 to 2017, he served as the company’s CTO.
Grob’s departure comes at a troubling time for Qualcomm. The company continues to work to close its much-delayed purchase of NXP while concurrently meeting its goal to cut costs by $1 billion. And, after President Trump moved to block Broadcom’s hostile takeover of Qualcomm, the company is now potentially facing an attempt by Paul Jacobs—a former Qualcomm CEO and the son of the company’s founder—to take control of Qualcomm in a bid to take the company private.