Uber fires exec over driverless car legal battle with Waymo

San Francisco

UBER Technologies Inc has fired self-driving car executive Anthony Levandowski, yielding to mounting pressure in its court fight with rival Waymo to part ways with the engineer after a judge concluded he took thousands of confidential files from the Alphabet Inc unit.

Mr Levandowski joined the ride- hailing startup in 2016 after several years at Google's autonomous driving project, which is now called Waymo. In February, Waymo sued Uber alleging that Mr Levandowski stole trade secrets and patents from Waymo for the development of self-driving technology and brought them to Uber. Mr Levandowski has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify in the case, hindering Uber's ability to defend itself against Waymo's claims.