Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski leaves federal court after hearing in San Jose
Reuters / Stephen Lam
President Donald Trump has pardoned Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer sentenced to prison for stealing trade secrets related to driverless cars from the search giant.
On Wednesday, Levandowksi was among dozens of individuals who received complete forgiveness from Trump on his last night in the White House.
The White House has listed technology billionaire Peter Thiel and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey as supporters of Levandowski’s pardon. Thiel was a major supporter and adviser for the 2016 campaign, but did not support Trump’s re-election effort. Luckey hosted a fundraiser for Trump just weeks before the 2020 election.
Levandowski said in a tweet: “My family and I are grateful for the opportunity to move forward and we are grateful to the president and others who have supported and supported on my behalf.”
In August, Levandowski was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets. He transferred thousands of files from Google before leaving the company. He continued to found a start-up called Otto, which was acquired by Uber.
Google’s carmaker Waymo has accused Uber of using those trade secrets in its driverless technology, which Uber has denied. In 2018, Uber and Waymo settled their legal dispute. But Levandowski, who was fired from Uber in 2017, had to face criminal charges.
The judge who convicted Levandowski’s case called it “the biggest trade secret crime I’ve ever seen.”
Trump forgave Levandowski, calling him “an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology.”
“Mr. Levandowski has pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge resulting from civil litigation. In particular, his sentencing judge called him” a brilliant and revolutionary engineer our country needs. “Mr. Levandowski paid a significant price for his actions. and intends to dedicate its talents to promoting the public good. “
In March, Levandowski filed for bankruptcy after a court ruled it had to pay Google $ 179 million for its split with Waymo.