Alphabet Inc. pushed out two managers on its drone-delivery project amid infighting on its team, according to people familiar with the situation, casting the program’s future in uncertainty and marking the latest setback for a Google sister company.
Alphabet, Google’s parent, has been developing delivery drones in its research arm since 2012 with the hopes of transforming logistics. But the drone project—dubbed Project Wing—has had a bumpy ride, with its original head departing in 2014.
Alphabet last month pushed out the project’s chief, Dave Vos, and its top commercial executive, Sean Mullaney, in large part because of conflict between the group’s engineers and its commercial team, according to the people familiar with the matter. It also issued notices to several other Project Wing workers, giving them 90 days to find other positions within Alphabet, one former employee said.
Alphabet confirmed Mr. Vos’s departure and declined to comment on Mr. Mullaney.
Messrs. Vos and Mullaney are the latest top executives to recently leave Alphabet units intended to extend the company’s business beyond internet search. Tony Fadell, former chief executive of its home automation firm Nest, disclosed he was going in June. Two months later, there were unrelated departures by Bill Maris, head of investment unit GV, and Chris Urmson, chief technology officer of the self-driving car project.
Some of the disagreement at Project Wing arose over Messrs. Vos and Mullaney’s efforts to push for more commercial tests of the drones in the near future, one person said. Mr. Vos had said publicly that he aimed for commercial operations to launch next year.
The engineering team wanted to delay to ensure the drones were reliable and safe, the person said. Some engineers also disagreed over the decision to deliver food to some faculty and students in a test at Virginia Tech in September, two people said. Some employees viewed the test as a publicity stunt, one said.
The setback is likely to delay Wing’s previously unannounced plans to test its delivery drones in Ireland, two people said. Mr. Mullaney had led talks with Irish aviation officials about a potential series of test flights that would ferry food between restaurants and customers in suburban or rural Ireland, the people said. The tests remain a possibility, one person said.
Wing had spoken with Starbucks Corp. about delivering coffee, but those talks fell apart some time ago, the people said. Starbucks declined to comment.
Astro Teller, the leader of Alphabet’s research arm, called X, has taken over the drone project in the interim as it searches for a new boss, one person said.
Messrs. Vos and Mullaney didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Alphabet spokeswoman said in an email that Mr. Vos left to “pursue new opportunities.” She added that he “helped to build a strong foundation of aviation culture on the team, and brought Project Wing to a place where we understand and can execute delivery missions end-to-end, repeatedly and safely.”
The spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Mullaney. His LinkedIn page says he left the project in October. MarketWatch earlier reported Mr. Vos was leaving Wing.
The Alphabet spokeswoman said the company is committed to Wing and the concept of delivery drones. Mr. Teller has spoken recently about the potential for delivery drones to not only upend logistics, but also reinvent the concept of ownership by giving people access to some goods in minutes versus having to keep such items on hand for the rare moments they are needed.
“We believe that opening the skies to faster, more efficient transportation of goods is a moonshot worth pursuing,” she said.
