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Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski leaves federal court after his arraignment hearing in San Jose
Reuters / Stephen Lam
President Donald Trump has pardoned Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer sentenced to jail for stealing trade secrets relating to driverless cars from the search giant.
Levandowksi was among dozens of individuals who received full pardon from Trump on Wednesday on his last night at the White House.
The White House has listed tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey as supporters of Levandowski’s forgiveness. Thiel was a major supporter and adviser to the 2016 campaign, but did not support Trump’s re-election 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 forward, and grateful to the president and others who have supported and defended my name.”
In August, Levandowski was sentenced to 18 months in prison for theft of trade secrets. He transferred thousands of files from Google before leaving the company. He then founded a start-up called Otto which was acquired by Uber.
Google’s self-driving car unit Waymo then accused Uber of using those 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, has faced criminal charges.
The sentencing judge in the Levandowski case called it “the greatest crime of trade secret I have ever seen.”
Trump granted Levandowski a full pardon, calling him “an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create autonomous driving technology.”
“Mr. Levandowski pleaded guilty to only one civil count arising from civil litigation. Notably, his sentencing judge called him “the brilliant and revolutionary engineer our country needs.” Mr. Levandowski has paid a considerable price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to the advancement of the public good. “
In March, Levandowski declared bankruptcy after a court said he had to pay Google $ 179 million for his split with Waymo.
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