The U.S. government should “sell every last share it owns” of General Motors Co., former Chief Executive Officer Ed Whitacre said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed commentary.

“The government has been an active participant in GM’s management for more than three years, and that’s long enough,” Whitacre wrote in the newspaper. “It’s time for the Treasury to step out of the way.”

Whitacre wrote the U.S. Treasury’s $50 billion rescue of GM has been a “resounding success,” saying millions of jobs were saved. If GM had failed, other automakers and suppliers “would likely have followed,” Whitacre wrote.

The former CEO said that while GM’s initial public offering “was a roaring success,” the company will never shed its “Government Motors” image as long as money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program is involved with GM.

Whitacre, 70, was GM’s CEO from December 2009 to September 2010.