Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Stepping Down Amid Investigation

SAN FRANCISCO — David Drummond, the chief legal officer of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and one of its most senior executives, is resigning amid an investigation into his relationships with women at the company.

In an email sent to employees at Google and Alphabet, Mr. Drummond, who joined Google in 2002, said he planned to leave Alphabet at the end of the month. He said that it was the “right time for me to make way for the next generation of leaders” in light of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, announcing plans to step back from day-to-day roles at the company.

Some employees inside Google were dismayed that Mr. Drummond was not forced to leave after an article from The New York Times in 2018 that disclosed how the company handled sexual harassment complaints and inappropriate relationships of its top executives.

Mr. Drummond, who is 56, had an extramarital relationship with a woman who worked for him and recently married another woman from Google’s legal department.

Last year, a committee of independent directors from Alphabet’s board hired a law firm to investigate its handling of allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate relationships by current and former executives as part of its legal defense against shareholder lawsuits over its handling of the matters, according to documents viewed by The Times.

Among the subjects in the inquiry are Mr. Drummond’s relationships with women at the company, according to the documents.

The departure of Mr. Drummond signals a changing of the guard for Alphabet. He was one of the longest-serving and influential executives at the company. As an outside lawyer for Wilson Sonsini, he helped draft the original incorporation papers for Google and later became the company’s first general counsel. He was instrumental in many of the company’s prominent and sometimes controversial moves, including the decision to exit the Chinese market in 2010.

His departure had been telegraphed in the last few months as he sold off most of his shares in Alphabet, unloading roughly $170 million worth of company stock from November to January.

Mr. Drummond faced additional scrutiny in August when Jennifer Blakely, a former senior contracts manager in Google’s legal department, published an essay on Medium about her relationship with him. She wrote about how Google forced her out of the legal department after the birth of their son made it impossible to the hide the relationship. Ms. Blakely was part of the Times article.

Her essay also said that Mr. Drummond had other extramarital relationships with women at the company after they split. At the time, Mr. Drummond said he had never started a relationship with “anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet.”

In his farewell note, Mr. Drummond did not mention any of the claims.

“I know this company is in the best of hands, and I am excited for what the future holds for Google, for Alphabet and for me,” he wrote.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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