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Andy Rubin, the founder of smartphone startup Essential, has already returned to his company less than two weeks after it was announced that he took a leave of absence amid questions about an alleged inappropriate relationship.
Rubin as of Friday ended the personal leave that he took in November after dealing with personal issues, according to two people familiar with his activities. His leave was reportedly only shared with employees on November 27, though a company representative said at the time that he began his leave earlier that month.
The CEO of Essential last month took leave as The Information was about to report that an “internal investigation determined that he had carried on an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate,” when he served as a top executive at Google.
Rubin has denied any wrongdoing and stressed that the relationship was consensual.
The decision to return to Essential will likely calm jitters about the future of the phone company, which has raised $330 million to develop its highly anticipated product. Rubin, the creator of the Android operating system, is a dominant figure in the phone industry.
Even while on leave from Essential, Rubin was still able to show up to work at the same physical workplace. That’s because he did not take a similar leave from Playground Global, the venture capital firm he founded, which shares the same office space as Essential.
Essential and Rubin declined to comment.
Rubin started Playground in 2015 and it has raised $300 million to incubate companies. Playground and Essential are inextricably linked beyond just being physically intermixed in different corners in the same open-space office: Playground led Essential’s first major fundraising round and Rubin serves as the CEO of both companies.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
