Current Ford CEO Alan Mulally may be out of the running for the Microsoft CEO job, according to a Ford board member.
Edsel Ford II, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, told Bloomberg today that Mulally is staying with the automaker through the end of next year.
“Alan is staying through the end of 2014 and that’s all I know,” Ford said. “Frankly, he has told us that his plan is to stay with Ford through the end of 2014.”
Last month, reports named Mulally as one of the handful of finalists to succeed Steve Ballmer, along with Nokia’s Stephen Elop, set to return to the company as part of Microsoft’s recently finalized Nokia Devices & Services acquisition. The other candidates rumored to be on the shortlist are current Skype head (and reported Silicon Valley favorite) Tony Bates, and Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise chief, Satya Nadella.
Neither Mulally nor Microsoft has officially commented on Ford’s statement.
