Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski leaves federal court after his trial in San Jose
Reuters / Stephen Lam
President Donald Trump pardoned Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who was jailed for stealing trade secrets related to the search giant’s driverless cars.
On Wednesday, Levandowksi was among dozens of individuals who received a full pardon from Trump on his last night in the White House.
The White House has named tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey as supporters of Levandowski’s apology. Thiel was a key supporter and adviser to 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 grateful for the president and others who support and plead 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 started a new business called Otto, which was acquired by Uber.
Google’s self-driving car unit Waymo then accused Uber of using those trade secrets in its unmanned car technology, which Uber 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 sentencing judge in Levandowski’s case calls it “the biggest trade secret crime I’ve ever seen.”
Trump gave Levandowski a full waiver, calling him “an American entrepreneur leading Google’s efforts to create self-governing technology.”
“Mr Levandowski has pleaded guilty to a single criminal case arising out of civil litigation. His sentencing judge calls him in particular a ‘brilliant, groundbreaking engineer who needs our country’. Mr Levandowski paid a significant price for his actions. and plans to use his talents to promote the public good. ‘
In March, Levandowski filed for bankruptcy after a court ruled he had to pay $ 179 million to Google over his split with Waymo.