Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski leaves the federal court after his prosecution hearing in San Jose
Reuters / Stephen Lam
President Donald Trump pardoned Anthony Levandowski, the 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 Trump’s full forgiveness on his last night at the White House.
The White House listed technology billionaire Peter Thiel and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey as supporters of Levandowski’s forgiveness. Thiel was a great supporter and advisor for the 2016 campaign, but did not support Trump’s reelection effort. Luckey organized 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 on and thankful to the president and others who supported and defended 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 ended up founding a start-up called Otto, which was acquired by Uber.
Google’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, accused Uber of using these trade secrets in its driverless 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 called it “the biggest secret commercial crime I’ve ever seen”.
Trump gave Levandowski a total forgiveness, calling him “an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create autonomous technology”.
“Mr. Levandowski pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge arising from a civil dispute. Notably, his sentencing judge called him ‘the brilliant and innovative engineer our country needs’. Mr. Levandowski paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to promoting the public good. “
In March, Levandowski declared bankruptcy after a court said he had to pay Google $ 179 million for his separation from Waymo.