SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - General Motors' self-driving technology unit, Cruise, has canceled its program that allows employees to cash out shares in the firm in the fourth quarter, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said in an email to employees on Thursday.

He said the company will re-evaluate the employee equity program in light of its recent decision to pause operations of its autonomous vehicles, which has "pushed out our commercialization and revenue generation timelines."

California regulators in November ordered Cruise to remove its driverless cars from state roads, calling the vehicles a risk to the public and saying the company had "misrepresented" the safety of the technology. The regulator said Cruise had not initially disclosed all video footage of an Oct. 2 accident where Cruise's car dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.

A Cruise spokesperson said, "GM and Cruise are working together on what competitive compensation packages at Cruise will look like going forward." (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Greg Bensinger in San Francisco and David Shepardson in Washington Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewis)