Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski is leaving federal court after his San Jose hearing
Reuters / Stephen Lam
President Donald Trump has pardoned Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who has been jailed for stealing trade secrets related to the search giant’s self-driving cars.
On Wednesday, Levandowksi was one of dozens of individuals to receive full pardon from Trump on his last night at the White House.
The White House named tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey as supporters of Levandowski’s grace. Thiel was a strong supporter and adviser for the 2016 campaign, but did not support Trump’s re-election. Luckey organized a fundraising campaign for Trump a few weeks before the 2020 election.
Levandowski said in a tweet, “My family and I are grateful for the opportunity to move on, and grateful to the president and others who supported and advocated 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 then found a start-up called Otto, which was acquired by Uber.
Waymo, Google’s self-driving car unit, then accused Uber of using those trade secrets in its self-driving car technology, which Uber denied. In 2018, Uber and Waymo settled their legal dispute. But Levandowski, who was fired from Uber in 2017, was criminally charged.
The judge in the Levandowski case called it the “greatest secret crime I’ve ever seen.”
Trump gave Levandowski full pardon, calling him “ an American entrepreneur in charge of Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology. ”
Mr. Levandowski pleaded guilty to a single criminal count resulting from civil proceedings. Notably, his criminal judge called him a ‘brilliant, pioneering engineer who needs our country’. Mr. Levandowski has paid a considerable price for his actions and intends to dedicate its talents to promoting the common good. “
In March, Levandowski declared bankruptcy after a court said he had to pay $ 179 million to Google for its split with Waymo.