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On his last full day in office, Donald Trump pardoned Anthony Levandowski, the engineer in the middle of Waymo’s epic trade secret battle with Uber, 2017. Last year, Levandowski pleaded guilty to stealing a single confidential Google document; prosecutors agreed to drop other pending charges against him.
Levandowski was a key early member of Google’s self-driving car project, but he left Google in early 2016 to start his own self-driving business. Within a few months, the startup was acquired for an amount of nine figures by Uber and Levandowski was put in charge of Uber’s self-management efforts.
But then Google’s self-government unit – now known as Waymo – accused Levandowski of stealing trade secrets. According to Waymo, in his last days as a Google employee, Levandowski downloaded thousands of confidential documents. Waymo says it was transferred to the theft after Uber submitted a design for a member circuit board to a third-party seller – a seller also used by Waymo. Uber’s design looked almost identical to that of Waymo.
Waymo sued Uber for the theft. When Levandowski appealed to the Fifth Amendment, rather than testify in the civil case, Uber fired him. Waymo and Uber settled their lawsuit in early 2018. Levandowski was eventually ordered to pay Waymo $ 179 million, forcing him to declare bankruptcy.
Federal prosecutors then charged Levandowski with thirty criminal charges related to the theft of trade secrets. Following Levandowski’s conviction, a judge sentenced him to 18 months in prison in August.
Levandowski argued that he had health conditions that put him at particular risk due to COVID-19. Thus, Judge Levandowski allowed his sentence to be postponed until the pandemic was over. Now, Trump’s pardon means Levandowski does not have to serve a day in jail.
According to the White House announcement of the pardon, Levandowski had a number fans who are well connected. The list included PayPal co-founder and early Facebook financier Peter Thiel and Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey. These men were two of the most prominent figures in Silicon Valley who supported Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
According to Trump’s pardon announcement, Levandowski “paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to promoting the public good.” Levandowski will likely now concentrate on Pronto, a self-driving truck startup he co-founded in 2018.