President Trump granted clemency to a total of 143 people, ranging from former adviser Stephen K. Bannon to rapper Lil Wayne. One name in particular that stands out in the tech community is none other than Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer, sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Google.en

“President Trump granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski. This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. 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. Notably, his 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”, is said in the Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency.

Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start his own self-driving truck company, which was quickly acquired by Uber for $680 million, according to CNET. These actions set off a chain of events that led to Google’s autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, suing Uber over alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets.

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