Uber Finally Gives Anthony Levandowski The Boot, More Trouble Than He’s Worth

With Uber and Google’s self-driving car division Waymo still embroiled in a legal battle, it would seem the cab-hailing firm decided that it was finally time to cut its greatest liability loose. The company recently fired Anthony Levandowski, the man who was supposed to make Travis Kalanick’s dream of a driverless cab fleet come true. Unfortunately, Levandowski ended up putting Uber’s future in jeopardy, instead.

As The New York Times reports, it would seem that Uber has finally had enough of the trouble that Levandowski has brought down upon the company and has decided to terminate his employment. The former Google employee and co-founder of the startup Otto was the executive head overseeing Uber’s self-driving division before all of this kerfuffle started happening.

For some background, Waymo is accusing Levandowski of stealing company secrets just before his departure. The engineer then used that stolen technology to create his own startup called Otto, which was subsequently snatched up by Uber.

Now, Levandowski’s termination brings up a few points of interest regarding the case between Uber and Waymo, as well as the future of both companies. It would seem that the cab-hailing firm has been pleading the executive to cooperate regarding its internal investigation into the matter. Such a move was necessary in order for the legal team to have an answer to Waymo’s demands.

By refusing to do so, Levandowski was placing Uber in an even more difficult position than it already was. As a result, the company was left with no choice but to let him go once the deadline for his compliance had come.

A company spokesperson confirmed that this was indeed the case, Business Insider reports, which places Uber’s self-driving ambitions on hold. This was a high-stakes case for the firm simply because everything was riding on securing a stable position in the driverless cab market. At this point, it’s unclear if Uber will even survive its legal battle with Waymo.