WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - General Motors ( GM )

robotaxi unit Cruise said on Tuesday it has named a former xBox

founding engineer as the new CEO of automaker's self-driving

vehicle company.

Marc Whitten will take over as chief executive on July 16,

Cruise announced. Cruise has had two co-presidents running the

company since Kyle Vogt resigned last year amid the fallout

after an accident involving one of its driverless vehicles in

California.

Whitten was a founding engineer at Xbox and Xbox Live and

was general manager and vice president at Amazon.com across a

range of entertainment devices and services and held other

positions at Sonos and Create at Unity.

GM separately also said Craig Glidden will remain president

and chief administrative officer at Cruise but will step down

from his role as GM's chief legal and public policy officer.

GM said Grant Dixton, who previously served as the chief

legal officer of Activision Blizzard and as general counsel at

Boeing, will become GM's chief legal and public policy officer

on July 15. Glidden will also serve as executive vice president

and strategic advisor at GM. 

Cruise has lost more than $8 billion since 2016 and has

faced a series of challenges since last October, when California

revoked its permit to operate driverless vehicles after an

accident in which one of its robotaxis struck a pedestrian and

dragged her 20 feet (6 meters).

The Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission

and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are

investigating Cruise.

Since the accident, Cruise has fired nine executives. Then

Vogt and company co-founder Dan Kan both resigned, and Cruise

cut a quarter of its staff.

Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission said

Cruise would pay the maximum fine of $112,500, which is $7,500

for each of the 15 days during which Cruise withheld information

about the incident after the company had offered to pay it and

boost information sharing.

Since April, Cruise has resumed supervised autonomous

driving Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing

testing in Dubai.

Cruise also Tuesday said it hired Rivian's global

communications head Nick Mulholland as its chief communications

and marketing officer.