Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is about to take the stand for a second time in the explosive Uber-Waymo trial
SAN FRANCISCO - Travis Kalanick is due to take the stand on Wednesday morning on the third day of the explosive Uber-Waymo trial. He's scheduled to appear in court when the trial reopens around 7:30 a.m. Pacific.
Uber has been accused by Waymo, a self-driving car company owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, of stealing its confidential trade secrets during Kalanick's tenure, before he was forced out by a string of explosive scandals in mid-2017.
At the heart of the trial is Anthony Levandowski, a star self-driving engineer who worked at Google's self-driving car project before it was spun out as Waymo, and left to found an autonomous truck startup, Otto, that was acquired by Uber. Waymo accuses Levandowski of stealing 14,000 internal documents and taking them to Uber with him.
Business Insider will update this story as Kalanick's testimony progresses. Refresh this page for updates.
Kalanick was first called as witness for a little under an hour on Tuesday, the second day of the blockbuster trial. Considered one of the key events at the trial, his early testimony was largely devoid of fireworks. Waymo's lawyers initially focused on his prior statements about the importance of self-driving technology to Uber's future, moving on to the details of his early interactions with Levandowski prior to when the latter left Google.
Kalanick confirmed that the two had discussed Levandowski starting a "Newco" (a new company, which was ultimately Otto) that would then be acquired by Uber: "I wanted to hire Anthony [Levandowski] and he wanted to start a company, so I tried to come up with a situation where he could feel like he started a company and I could feel like I hired him," he said.
Uber's lawyers may also get a chance to cross examine Kalanick Wednesday.
The trial marks Kalanick's first public appearances since he was fired from Uber.
Read Business Insider's coverage from Day 1 and Day 2 of the trial here.