Uber’s secret link to top politicians revealed via leaked documents

Uber Technologies Inc. is in a hot seat after it was revealed that some top politicians had been secretly helping it in unfair ways. The company’s hush-hush relationship with some lawmakers was uncovered after leaked documents were circulated.

As per BBC News, it was a massive leak that divulged details of how some top politicians have helped Uber in many ways, including evading investigations for possible offenses. Based on the information gathered from the leaked documents, Emmanuel Macron, the current President of France, had at least four meetings with Travis Kalanick who was a former chief executive officer of the American mobility service provider.

There were thousands of files, and they have exposed how Uber engaged in lobbying and wooed politicians to help the company. It also revealed how far the company went to circumvent justice.

Furthermore, the documents bared many shocking revelations, including how Macron and Neelie Kores, former EU commissioner, had helped Uber. The use of the “kill switch” by Kalanick was also discovered, and this order is activated to prevent police from raiding its office and accessing the computers.

Based on the reports, there were 124,000 files, and 83,000 of them were emails, and 1,000 were conversation files recorded from the period 2013 to 2017. These were said to have been leaked first to the Guardian media outlets and were shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and several media organizations such as BBC Panorama.

The files disclosed how a $90 million a year lobbying and public relations effort courted friendly politicians to secure backing for its campaign to turn the taxi industry in Europe upside-down. This was also done so it could expand its business without hindrances.

For the uncovered details, Uber said its past behavior was not in agreement with its present values. It added that the company is very different today from what it was yesterday.

Finally, Fox Business mentioned that Kalanick was eventually ousted by Ubers’ shareholders in 2017, and since then, it has tried to change its ways by distancing itself from its previous methods of doing business. Dara Khosrowshahi replaced Kalanick as CEO and has since been tasked with changing every point of how the company operates.