Uber is in hot water on the heels of an explosive report from the Guardian. According to a trove of more than 124,000 confidential documents leaked to the outlet, the ride-sharing company knowingly broke laws, duped police, secretly lobbied governments, received aid from top politicians, and exploited violence against drivers to boost business. Caleb Silver, the Editor-in-Chief of Investopedia, joined Cheddar News to break down the most alarming revelations of the report and how it might impact Uber in the future. 

Opening Bell

'The Uber Files' Reveal Dark History of Ride-Sharing Company

here to discuss this and break it all down as Caleb silver, editor in chief at investopedia. Caleb. What is, what are some of the most alarming revelations out of this report to you? Good to be with you. And this is a massive league. This is really during the period from 2013 to 2017, of course, Travis Kalanick was the Ceo at that time. So this covers that period and some of the things revealed in these in these leagues and attempt to lobby government officials even influenced government officials throughout the world, including joe biden, including George Osborne, the Chancellor of the UK, including Macron, who is the european who was the french economic minister at the time, but all over the world in Russia and in Germany influence potential, uh, looking for favors, looking to get Uber service approved in those cities. So, you saw a lot of that happening also talking about a kill switch that the company would use when law enforcement would come to investigate them in these various cities around the world because of allegations of illegal acts, they would have a kill switch to cut off data to not let law enforcement access their data. So there's that there's also a very strong language in thousands of documents, emails, WhatsApp messages, and text messages from Uber's leadership at the time. Travis Kalanick and others talking about how violence may be a good thing to get their point across in terms of drivers who are on strike and potential violence in cities like paris and London, but also admitting in some cases. Executive is admitting that they're operating in illegal activities. So a lot of damaging information coming out of these documents so much that I want to dig in today. Let's start with this. That kill switch is one of the things that I think is in the headlines the most, I think it's just crazy and almost movie like when you think about it, the company using a kill switch essentially from my understanding is is in California being able to kind of turn off the server so that if there were, you know, investigators in France somewhere that their computers there went blank and they didn't have access to their servers. How was Uber able to get away with that? Well, a lot of money went into a lot of this. But also just the way they operated as a company at that time according to these documents and according to a lot of reporting that's gone on around Uber this of course during the Travis Kalanick era when he was Ceo and we know he was a very hard driving Ceo who may have pushed the limits in a lot of ways and ultimately cost him his job as Ceo of the company. So they were pushing it from the top down this aggressive activity considering themselves pirates, so to speak, that they could get away with anything. They would just coerced their way or pushed their way into these markets and bend politicians to there will that was the mentality at the time, at least. That's the feeling you get by looking at these documents that were dumped on the Guardian. And of course these documents did come from Uber's chief lobbyist at the time who uh, I guess had a crisis of conscious and decided he would leak these documents to the Garden. The Guardian, now working with International Center for investigative journalists and other news outlets, there's gonna be a lot of stories beyond this. The Washington post is coming out with stories the BBC Le Monde. You're gonna see a lot more in the headlines around Uber and its activities from the past several years in just the next few days or weeks. Yeah. To your point there a moment ago, one of the other major headlines out of this is Uber's effort to bend politicians as you put it. One politician in particular, french President Emmanuel Macron allegedly in these documents, went to extraordinary lengths to help Uber succeed in France when he was the Economy minister. What else do we know about the relationship between Macron and Uber? Well, we know that Uber was trying to use its influence, but also allow politicians potentially and people of influence to invest with them or get invested in startups that Uber was invested in as a carrot to help them out in these markets and we know how contentious it was for Uber to get into paris for Uber to get into London. It's still very contentious there. the european cities. It's a lot tougher for Uber to expand into those markets because they have a more entrenched taxi base there. So there was a lot of that type of conversation going on according to WhatsApp messages and text messages. And it doesn't look great for the former french president. Of course, he was the economic Minister at the time, but it's still not a great look for Uber or any of these folks that were involved with this. All right. Another kind of bombshell out of this was the you mentioned a moment ago as well, these explosive revelations that Uber executives warned against sending drivers to protest in France, which could lead to violence. Then Kalanick, the then Ceo said in a response quote, I think it's worth violence. I think it's worth it. Violence guarantees success is seemingly trying to say that listen, you have this violent clash and then you can go back to lawmakers and say, hey, we have to do something here. You have to like help us out and then kind of forces their hand to legitimizing Uber. How concerning are those comments? I mean, willing to put to extend, I mean, you don't know what happens at approach, especially if it breaks out violence, a driver's life at risk for the benefit of your company. Yeah, it sounds terrible. It is terrible. Uh, Kalanick spokesperson trying to back away from those statements. They were they were taken out of context. They were actually taken out of documents from Kalanick. So I don't know how they were taken out of context. So it sounds terrible. And it is because we're talking about putting people's lives in danger, putting people's livelihoods at stake. And also, you know, trying to incite violence or encourage it to get their point across sort of a son su mentality by any means necessary. And if we have to use violence to achieve our means to send a message or to help get a message sent, we're going to do that. And that's the kind of hard charging pirate type of behavior that Kalanick was known for now. It's coming to light through these documents. And as I said, this is just the very beginning tip of the iceberg here. The Guardian out first with all this because they were the they got the documents leaked to them from the former chief lobbyist from Uber for the european area. But now you're going to see these other stories coming out of various news outlets in the next few weeks. And there's a lot of this is centered around investigative journalism done by the I C. I. J. And we have to say really good investigative journalism, not only The Guardian having access to this, but a panel of journalists really vetting a lot of this information and bringing it to the public to to have balance here and be fair right in a statement responding to the leak, Uber has said that it is transformed quote since 2017 under new leadership, they have the, I think the new Ceo went further to say that 90% of the staff is really different. Staff really pointed to maybe the cultural shift that has happened with Uber. You know, how true is this and what are your thoughts in terms of the company's ability to change from what was then Ceo Travis Kalanick's um essential way of doing business via these, these leaked documents. Yeah, well dark heart, he has been very adamant about changing the culture of Uber, changing the mentality of the people who work for Uber and also working better with their drivers and also with the municipalities where Uber needs to be to be a successful business and has had a lot of struggles with his business. So the company is distancing itself from these activities and from these Documents of course that were from the 20 13 to 2017 era, completely new leadership team there and a lot of new employees. So he's done a lot to try to transform culture. He's done a lot to try to transform the relationship that Uber has with lawmakers and Uber's reputation in general. Uber has a lot of issues as we know just on that front, but it also has trouble on its business front. The company trying to become profitable. They are saying that the company is no longer trying to be a bit dot profitable in the next few years but free cash flow profitable. That that said, the company is still losing $6 billion a year really quickly. I only have 30 seconds here, but I want to squeeze this question in what legal consequences do you think Uber might face? You know, on the heels of this And what do you think this means for the future of Uber? So far, investors really haven't reacted negatively to this. Well, investors have been reacting negatively to Uber's business prospects which don't look good at all and haven't looked good for a long time. The company's trying, so the company has had an issue with profitability and that's troubling at a time like this. That said these again, these are activities from 2013 to 2017. Uber already faces hundreds of lawsuits around the world. It's got 100,000, drivers and arbitration here in the U. S. Not to mention what's going on with prop 22 has got a lot of issues to clean up and you can bet There's gonna be a lot of legal activity, a lot of settlements and a lot of paperwork before this is really in its past. But the company has been trying to turn a new leaf, put it, uh, you know, get into a new lane, so to speak since star took over in 2017. A long road ahead for them to do that again. This is not gonna be lasting this Caleb really appreciate your time and your insight. It's always great Caleb, silver editor in chief of investopedia.