The world of autonomous cars is growing, and people can credit Anthony Levandowski for this.
Born in 1980, French-American Levandowski is best known for advancing the field of autonomous vehicles, when he co-founded Google's self-driving car program that is later known as Waymo. Levandowski was leading the project until 2016, the time when he left Google to co-founded and sold Otto, an autonomous trucking company, to Uber Technologies.
But Levandowski is also known for being a convict
When he left Waymo, Levandowski managed to illegally download thousands of files from the company, and showed those files to Uber.
Levandowski stated that he left Google because he "was eager to commercialize a self-driving vehicle as quickly as possible." But after Uber found that Levandowski's possession was a trade secret, Uber informed Google, and fired Levandowski in May 30, 2017.
In July 2018 Uber's autonomous trucking program was shut down.
In 2019, Levandowski pleaded guilty to one of the 33 charges of alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with judge William Alsup describing the incident as the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.”
The U.S. President has the power to completely set a federal pardon to aside one's punishment for a federal crime.
The authority to take such action is granted to the president by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution. With it, a pardon is one form of the power of the President of the United States, with others being commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, and reprieve.
And here, one of Donald Trump's final acts in office as President, was to pardon the former Google engineer Levandowski from conviction.
It should be noted though, that Levandowski never really began his sentence.
His case was allowed to be delayed because of the 'COVID-19' coronavirus pandemic.
According to a statement from the White House, Levandowski’s pardon was supported by high-profile figures from the tech industry including Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, venture capitalist, and controversial billionaire investor who was once Trump’s most prominent backer in Silicon Valley.
Other Levandowski’s supporters in his pardon quest included Palmer Luckey, the founder of the virtual-reality company Oculus and a major Trump campaign donor; Michael Ovitz, the founder of the Hollywood talent CAA; and other investors and executives tied to Thiel, including Blake Masters.
My family and I are grateful for the opportunity to move forward, and thankful to the President and others who supported and advocated on my behalf.
— Anthony Levandowski (@antlevandowski) January 20, 2021
“Mr. Levandowski is an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology. Mr. Levandowski pled guilty to a single criminal count arising from civil litigation,” the White House said in its statement.
The White House also noted that Levandowski’s sentencing judge called him a "brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs."
“Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good,” the White House added in its statement.
The White House's statement disappeared after President-elect Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
As Biden and Kamala Harris assume office, immediate changes were made to the White House website, and this removed the White House's statement.
Besides Anthony Levandowski, Trump has also pardoned more than 70 other individuals.
These people include rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black; Trump's former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon; former Republican National Committee finance chair and one of Trump's top fundraisers Elliott Broidy; ex-member of Congress Randall Cunningham; former mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick, and more.
It should be noted that besides being an important figure in the fields of autonomous cars, Levandowski is also known as the founder of the Church of AI he calls the 'Way of the Future'.
"What is going to be created will effectively be a god. It's not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes," Levandowski once said about his religious corporation. "But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?"
