Eric Schmidt shocked Silicon Valley with a surprise announcement Thursday that he’s stepping down as executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
The 62-year-old tech tycoon — who, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, was originally tapped as CEO in 2001 to provide “adult supervision” for himself and Larry Page — said in a statement that he will remain at Alphabet as a “technical advisor.”
“In recent years, I’ve been spending a lot of my time on science and technology issues, and philanthropy, and I plan to expand that work,” Schmidt said.
One source close to Schmidt said the move would allow him to have a more “hands-on role” in developing artificial intelligence for defense.
Schmidt has also been spending more time on his foundation, which focuses on sustainability, the source said.
But the timing of Schmidt’s sudden move — along with the fact that Alphabet waited three days to disclose that Schmidt had told the company he was stepping down, according to a filing — raised questions.
Schmidt is a known womanizer despite being married for 37 years to Wendy Schmidt, who said in 2012 they started living separate lives because she felt like “a piece of luggage” following him around the world.
News outlets have been sniffing around Schmidt’s former flames looking for a Harvey Weinstein-like bombshell, a source close to Schmidt told The Post. But sources say there’s nothing there.
“They haven’t found s–t. Because there is no sexual harassment. There has never been any issue. They have had nothing. People have looked into it and people have not found anything,” the source said.
The source added that if something foul was afoot, Google would have canned Schmidt completely.
“Why would they keep him on the board, then have to do this all over again?” the source asked.
Another source close to Schmidt said that any rumors of sexual harassment were “totally not true.”
But the insider could not deny Schmidt’s well-documented romantic past and said the techie’s entanglements were “consensual” and that there are “no complaints” against the exec or “settlements” from the company.
In 2013, Page Six first reported that Schmidt spent $15 million on a private, no-doorman Manhattan penthouse in the Flatiron District. The abode was fully soundproofed and said to be a love nest to accommodate his multiple affairs.
Schmidt has been linked to women including TV presenter Kate Bohner, PR exec Marcy Simon, and Danya Perry, who is chief of litigation and deputy general counsel to billionaire Ronald Perelman.
Previously, Gawker reported that Google employees got irked in 2007 when Simon briefly got hired by Google’s Android team while she was in a relationship with Schmidt.
Elsewhere, however, Schmidt’s reported dalliances appear to have been with non-Google employees.
One source spotted Schmidt with glamorous Manhattan socialite Ulla Parker — ex-wife of Wall Street veteran Kevin Parker — last summer.
According to another source, “it could be just that, in the current environment, we’ve reached a tipping point. It is now unacceptable for the head of a public company to be running around with multiple mistresses while his wife is at home.”
Alphabet declined to comment beyond the press release.
With Alexandra Steigrad