Anthony Levandowski

Anthony Levandowski (born March 15, 1980) is a French-American self-driving car engineer. In 2009, Levandowski co-founded Google's self-driving car program, known as Waymo, and was a technical lead until 2016. In 2010, he co-founded Google X along with Yoky Matsuoka and Sebastian Thrun. In 2016, he co-founded and sold Otto, an autonomous trucking company, to Uber Technologies. In 2018, he co-founded the autonomous trucking company Pronto; the first self-driving technology company to complete a cross-country drive in an autonomous vehicle in October 2018. At the 2019 AV Summit hosted by The Information, Levandowski remarked that a fundamental breakthrough in artificial intelligence is needed to move autonomous vehicle technology forward.

In 2019, Levandowski was indicted on 33 federal charges of theft of self-driving car trade secrets. In August 2020, Levandowski pled guilty to one of the 33 charges, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was pardoned less than six months later on January 20, 2021, the last day of Donald Trump's presidency. In September, 2021 Levandowski rejoined Pronto as CEO; subsequently announcing the company's new offroad autonomous division.