One of President Trump’s final acts in office is to forgive a former Google engineer who was convicted of stealing trade secrets. Anthony Levandowski worked for Google’s autonomous car division, now called Waymo, before setting out to found Otto, an autonomous truck company that was acquired by Uber. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in August, with judge William Alsup describing the incident as the “biggest crime of trade secrets I have ever seen”.
Levandowski was found to have downloaded thousands of files to his laptop before leaving Google and entering into sales discussions. Uber ended up firing him after Google sued him, and Levandowski continues in a legal battle with the hitchhiking company, claiming he should be responsible for the $ 179 million he was ordered to pay Google. In a separate lawsuit, Levandowski argued that Uber owed him billions of dollars in lost value from the Otto deal.
Levandowski never started his sentence, as Alsup allowed it to be postponed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a White House statement, Levandowski’s forgiveness was supported by numbers from the technology industry, including controversial billionaire investor Peter Thiel, Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens and Oculus and Palantir founder Palmer Luckey.
Along with Levandowski, Trump pardoned 72 other individuals and commuted the prison sentences of another 70. The list includes rappers Lil Wayne, who pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm last year, and Kodak Black, who is currently in prison. prison for possession of a weapon. Trump also granted forgiveness to Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart News chief who served as Trump’s chief strategist until his bitter departure in 2017.