Judge Rejects Attempt To Raise Bail Of Ex-Google Engineer

A federal judge has rejected a government recommendation that he impose a $10 million bail bond on a former Google engineer who is accused of stealing self-driving car technology before joining Uber’s effort to build robotic taxis. The preliminary ruling issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Nathanael Cousins means Anthony Levandowski remains free on the $2 million bails he posted last week after being charged with heisting Google’s trade secrets before defecting to Uber in 2016.

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Google affiliate Waymo is trying to create a fleet of fully autonomous taxis to compete against Uber and Lyft, which are both losing huge amounts of money partly because their ride-hailing services pay people to steer the vehicles. The government says it believes the wealth Levandowski accumulated as a former star Google engineer, as well as his dual French citizenship, make him an extreme risk to flee the U.S. before trial. Documents submitted to Cousins pegged his net worth at $72 million. Some of that money may be left over from a self-driving car startup called Otto that Levandowski launched even before leaving Google and eventually sold to Uber for $680 million. Levandowski then took over leadership of Uber’s self-driving car division, only to be fired in 2017 after Waymo filed a lawsuit accusing him of stealing key technology before he left Google. Before the lawsuit was filed, Google