Uber Leaks Detail the Company's Strong-Arm Tactics
Uber is going to be in the news for a while.
The Guardian reports(Opens in a new window) that it obtained a trove of "more than 124,000 documents" that includes "more than 83,000 emails, iMessages, and WhatsApp messages" between Uber executives from 2013-2017. (Which is the year Uber founder Travis Kalanick stepped down as CEO.)
The Guardian says it shared these documents with more than 180 reporters via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(Opens in a new window) and that more than 40 media outlets "will in the coming days publish a series of investigative reports about the tech giant" as a result.
The initial report shows that Uber courted politicians like President Joe Biden, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and French president Emmanuel Macron—before they were elected, in Biden and Macron's cases—to help it expand to additional markets.
The report also indicates that Uber encouraged drivers for its platform to attend protests despite threats to their safety in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands as part of its broader efforts to "weaponize" drivers whenever it raised the ire of local regulators.
The Guardian goes on to report that Uber executives and managers regularly acknowledged the illegal nature of its platform in many jurisdictions and that the company developed a "kill switch" for its local offices intended to stop "authorities from gathering evidence" from its main systems.
The paper has published statements from Uber(Opens in a new window) and a spokesperson for Kalanick(Opens in a new window). Additional reporting from the BBC(Opens in a new window), the Washington Post(Opens in a new window), andthe Irish Times(Opens in a new window) has been
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