Bobby Kotick, the current CEO of Activision Blizzard, will remain with the company until the end of this year. The CEO confirmed this in an email to employees. Then he leaves. Activision Blizzard was officially acquired by Microsoft on Friday.
Kotick writes to employees of Activision Blizzard that he is “excited” about the company’s future under Xbox. That reports tech website The Verge, who viewed the email. The CEO confirms that he will remain with the company temporarily to ensure a smooth transition from the company to Microsoft. He will do so ‘until the end of this year’.
Bobby Kotick
The CEO will remain the CEO of Activision Blizzard until then. He will then report to Xbox boss Phil Spencer. Kotick then leaves the company. It was already expected that Kotick would leave the company after the takeover. After the takeover, he will probably receive $375 million for his shares Bloomberg wrote last year.
Bobby Kotick has been CEO of Activision since 1991. In 2008, the company merged with the French Vivendi Games, renaming the company Activision Blizzard. The company acquired Candy Crush developer King in 2015. All those companies will now be owned by Microsoft, now that the acquisition has been completed after 21 months.
In recent years, Activision Blizzard has been in the news for an alleged ‘culture of sexual harassment’, something Kotick allegedly knew about it. Staff asked Kotick to resign in 2021.