One of President Trump’s last actions in office is to forgive a former Google engineer convicted of stealing trade secrets. Anthony Levandowski worked for Google’s self-driving division, now called Waymo, before leaving for Otto, a trucking company acquired by Uber. He was sentenced in August to 18 months in prison, with Judge William Alsup describing the incident as “the biggest trade-secret crime I have ever seen.”
Levandowski found that he downloaded thousands of files to his laptop before leaving Google and embarking on conversations. Uber eventually fired him after Google sued, and Levandowski is still in a legal battle with the company that drives it, claiming it should be liable for the $ 179 million he was ordered to pay Google. In a separate case, Levandowski argued Uber owed him billions of dollars in lost value due to the Otto deal.
Levandowski never started his sentence because Alsup allowed it to be delayed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a White House statement, Levandowski’s pardon is backed by figures from the technology industry, including controversial billionaire investor Peter Thiel, co-founding fund partner Trae Stephens, and Oculus and Palmer Luc, founder of Palantir.
In addition to Levandowski, Trump pardoned 72 other individuals and converted the prison sentence of 70 more. The list includes rappers Lil Wayne, who pleaded guilty last year to a charge of possession of firearms, and Kodak Black, who is currently in jail on charges of firearms. Trump also granted a pardon to Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News boss who served as Trump’s chief strategist until his stern departure in 2017.