Uber internal documents leaked Guardian And shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), as well as dozens of other news outlets, outline their strategies for global expansion — even if the company has to bend some rules. The leaks, collectively dubbed the Uber Files, include more than 124,000 documents spanning the period between 2013 and 2017.
Uber has responded to leaks in a post on its website after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took over following founder Travis Kalanick’s resignation in 2017, saying it has “shifted from an era of confrontation to a collaboration”. .
According to GuardianThe leak also shows how Uber tries to garner support by intelligently projecting prime ministers, presidents, billionaires, oligarchs and media barons. In addition to memos, presentations, notebooks and other telling documents, the leaks include “emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the most senior executives of the Silicon Valley giant.”
an article from Washington Post Reveals Uber’s alleged use of a “kill switch” to shut down the company’s computer systems “to prevent executives from successfully investigating the company’s business practices because it disrupted the global taxi industry,” another detail The company took advantage of “violent attacks” on drivers to advance its agenda. The report includes quotes from the “Don’t Red Manual,” which the company has put together that includes a bullet point that mentions “never leave regulators alone.”
A BBC report focused on French President Emmanuel Macron telling Uber’s CEO he could reform the laws in the company’s favor. It also suggests that former EU commissioner Neely Krauss was in talks to join its advisory board before leaving her previous European position, and that the company was in informal “cooling-off” periods before joining. was lobbying.
As Uber begins offering its ride-sharing services around the world, Guardian The report’s executives were “under no illusions about the company’s law-breaking, with an executive joking that they had become ‘pirates’.” In a 2014 message to a colleague, Uber’s former head of global communications, Nary Overdajian, reportedly said: “Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.”
“We have not made excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our current values,” Uber’s SVP of Marketing and Public Affairs Jill Hazelbaker wrote in Uber’s response. “Instead, we ask the public what we have done in the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.”
Devon Spurgeon, a spokesman for Travis Kalanick, provided a lengthy set of denials published by the ICIJ, saying, “Mr. Kalanick did not authorize or direct any illegal conduct in Uber’s expansion efforts in Russia, and in fact those expansions are There was very limited participation in the plans. And Mr. Kalanick never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety … while suppressing his false agenda that Mr. Kalanick directed illegal or inappropriate conduct, The ICIJ claims that Mr Kalanick had or even is the author of the documents, some of which are almost a decade old.”