Confidential documents reveal that Uber approached leaders, senior officials, oligarchs and even media barons in an attempt to advance the company's interests. The British newspaper, the Guardian, leaked the relevant moons that came into the possession of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism. Among the people involved is the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who appears to have gone to great lengths to help Uber, even telling the company that he had brokered a secret "deal" with its rivals in the French cabinet.
At the same time, it is reported that the former owner of the company personally ordered all electronic records to be deleted to prevent the authorities from accessing data during police investigations.
A major undercover lobbying operation comes to light, with the files revealing attempts to reach out to, among others, Joe Biden - when he was Vice President of the United States - as well as current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during his time in the Hamburg mayoralty.
The leaked documents span a five-year period from 2013 to 2017, when Uber was run by co-founder Travis Kalanick, who attempted to introduce international taxi services by disrupting the European taxi industry.
Amid fierce international backlash, evidence suggests that Uber attempted to attract support by subtly "courting" prime ministers, presidents, billionaires, oligarchs and media barons.
The records include 83,000 emails and messages on social media, as well as another 1,000 documents relating to conversations.
According to the Guardian, the leaked emails suggest that Uber executives were under no illusions that laws were being broken by the company, with one executive joking that they had become "pirates" and another admitting, "We're illegal."
In an exchange of messages, Travis Kalanick appeared to dismiss concerns among some executives that sending Uber drivers to protest in France could expose them to the risk of violence from angry taxi industry drivers.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Kalanick points out that "at no time was it ever implied that Uber should benefit from violence at the expense of driver safety."
Uber says its "past behavior was not aligned with its current values" and today it "is a different company."
Source: protothema.gr
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