Uber's self-driving car boss, Anthony Levandowski, is stepping aside amid legal fight with Waymo

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Travis Kalanick Anthony Levandowski

Associated Press

Anthony Levandowski, the head of Uber's self-driving group, is stepping aside in face of accusations of theft from his former employer, Waymo.

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In an email obtained by Business Insider, Levandowski said he will no longer be working on Lidar-related work at Uber, but he will remain at Uber and will retain his other responsibilities overseeing things like operations and security.

In his place, Eric Meyhofer is being named head of Uber's Advanced Technologies group, which oversees its self-driving car and trucking divisions.

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Uber confirmed that Levandowski is no longer head of its Advanced Technologies Group, but declined to comment further.

Read Levandowski's full email to his employees below:

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Team:

I want to let you know that Travis and I have decided that I will be recused from all LiDAR-related work and management at Uber, through the remainder of the Waymo litigation. This change means that Eric Meyhofer will be the head of ATG, reporting to Travis, and I will report to Eric. My other responsibilities will not change.

As you know, I currently don't provide input on detailed LiDAR design choices. But making this organizational change means I will have absolutely no oversight over or input into our LiDAR work. Going forward, please make sure not to include me in meetings or email threads related to LiDAR, or ask me for advice on the topic.

We all know the hard work that Eric, James and the LiDAR team have put into independently developing our technology over the past few years.

We should all be proud that our self-driving technology has been built independently, from the ground up. With this move, I hope to keep the team focused on achieving the vision that brought us all here.

Thanks,

Anthony

Developing...This post will be updated.

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