Uber used ex-CIA agents to steal trade secrets, fired manager says. Feds are investigating

Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Uber deployed an espionage team to plunder trade secrets from its rivals. That has triggered a delay in a high-profile trial over whether the beleaguered ride-hailing company stole self-driving car technology from Google spinoff Waymo. The criminal investigation being conducted by the U.S. Justice Department centers on information contained in a 37-page letter that Uber's former manager of global intelligence sent in May to a company lawyer. The investigation wasn't publicly known until Tuesday, when it surfaced in a court hearing that was supposed to set the stage for a trial pitting Uber against Waymo, a self-driving car pioneer that started within Google eight years ago and is still a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. The hearing instead quickly turned into a forum raising more questions about the ethics and conduct of Uber.