Waymo files a preliminary list of 461 questions for Anthony Levandowski, expecting him to invoke his Fifth Amendment right in response to many
On Friday, Waymo filed a list of 461 questions it intends to ask Anthony Levandowski — a former employee it's accusing of downloading 14,000 proprietary files …
Context & Ripple Effects
This filing is the latest escalation in a legal arc that began in March, when Waymo asked the court to block Uber from operating autonomous vehicles and backed the trade-secrets allegations with testimony from a former colleague of Levandowski. By April, Levandowski had already invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid potential charges, and in May Uber threatened to fire him if he refused a court-ordered return of any files he still held.
The 461-question list is Waymo converting that standoff into discovery mechanics: by pre-filing questions it expects to go unanswered, Waymo positions every silent refusal as evidence in a case where the defendant's own counsel has already signaled he will not testify.
First-order effects
- Levandowski faces a deposition where broad swaths of his answers will be 'I invoke the Fifth,' letting Waymo document non-cooperation on the record while he remains exposed to potential criminal charges.
- Uber is squeezed between two court pressures at once — the order to make Levandowski return files and its own termination threat — with each unanswered question weakening the employee it must either defend or cut loose.
Second-order effects
- Every Fifth Amendment refusal in the civil deposition hands Waymo material to argue Uber's self-driving program was built on misappropriated files, raising the cost for Uber of keeping Levandowski in any role tied to that program.
- A pattern of refusals strengthens Waymo's push for the operating ban it sought in March, forcing Uber to weigh settling or restructuring its autonomy leadership rather than litigating with a silenced central figure.
Third-order effects
- If the case holds, it establishes that departing engineers who take proprietary files can be neutralized as witnesses even before any criminal outcome — making pre-departure file handling and litigation exposure a standing risk in autonomous-vehicle talent moves.
- The dispute is becoming a template for how trade-secret claims police the movement of self-driving expertise between companies, with courts, not just employers, setting the terms of engineer mobility.
The trend: Autonomous-driving competition is being adjudicated through trade-secret litigation, where one engineer's silence can shape whether a rival's entire program stays on the road.