Mobileye Founder Shashua to Step Down as CEO
Amnon Shashua will exit the chief executive role after 27 years at the helm of Mobileye Global (MBLY), the company said, capping a quarter in which revenue swung from a 9% decline to 27% growth.
Mobileye Global (MBLY) said Prof. Amnon Shashua, who founded the autonomous-driving technology company and has led it as chief executive for 27 years, will step down from the CEO role, with a board search underway for his successor. Shashua will remain on the board and is expected to become chairman once a new CEO is named.
The announcement carried no financial results. Unlike the prior four quarterly releases, each of which included a full revenue, margin, EPS and guidance update, the succession disclosure omitted any operating metrics. That leaves the company's most recent reported quarter, Q1 2026, as the last window into its financial trajectory ahead of a leadership change.
That trajectory has been volatile. Revenue rose 15% year-over-year in Q2 2025 to $506 million, slowed to 4% growth in Q3, then fell 9% in Q4 to $446 million before rebounding to 27% growth in Q1 2026, reaching $558 million. The company attributed the fourth-quarter decline to tighter-than-normal year-end customer inventory levels, even as auto production came in better than expected.
Profitability moved in step with the top line. GAAP gross margin slipped from 50% in Q2 2025 to 45% in Q4 2025 before recovering to 49% in Q1 2026, up 202 basis points from a year earlier. Non-GAAP adjusted operating margin followed a similar arc, falling from 21% to 15% before climbing to 17% in Q1 2026, a 360-basis-point improvement year-over-year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share fell for three straight quarters, from $0.13 in Q2 2025 to $0.06 in Q4 2025, before rebounding to $0.12 in Q1 2026.
The Q1 2026 GAAP results were dominated by a one-time, non-cash charge. Mobileye recorded a $3,788 million goodwill impairment tied to Intel's 2017 acquisition of the company, driving a GAAP operating loss of $3,896 million and an operating margin of negative 698%, compared with a negative 18% margin a year earlier.
Mobileye raised its full-year 2025 revenue guidance twice, moving from a range of $1,765 million to $1,885 million in the second quarter to $1,845 million to $1,885 million by the third quarter; actual 2025 revenue came in at $1,894 million, above both prior ranges. For 2026, the company raised its full-year guidance midpoint by 2% in the first quarter, citing better-than-expected first-quarter demand, building on guidance issued in January that had implied flat-to-5% revenue growth for the year.
Mobileye closed its acquisition of humanoid-robotics developer Mentee Robotics in early February 2026, a deal first disclosed as pending in the fourth quarter of 2025 with an expected cash outlay of about $612 million. The closing reduced the company's first-quarter cash balance by $591 million net of cash acquired. Operating cash flow for full-year 2025 totaled $602 million, up 51% from 2024, but the company generated just $75 million in the first quarter of 2026 alone, a slower single-quarter pace cited alongside the Mentee outlay.
The company also disclosed its first-ever share repurchase program in the first quarter of 2026, authorizing buybacks of up to $250 million to offset dilution from stock compensation and the Mentee deal, following a smaller $100 million buyback executed in the third quarter of 2025. Mobileye's disclosed eight-year pipeline of expected future automotive revenue stood at $24.5 billion at the end of 2025, up 42% from the prior update at year-end 2022.