'We’re just fucking illegal,’ one senior Uber executive wrote to a colleague. ‘Uber launches, and then there is a regulatory and legal sh*itstorm,’ wrote another.
The extraordinarily frank messages, along with thousands more, are part of the Uber Files, a new leak which reveals the inside story of how the ride-hailing giant’s executives muscled into new markets, then managed the fallout, spending gobs of cash on a global influence machine deployed to win favours from politicians, regulators and other leaders.
The 124,000 files were leaked to The Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which led a collaboration of more than 40 media outlets investigating Uber’s chaotic global expansion and its relationships with influential politicians, like Emmanual Macron, Joe Biden, Neelie Kroes and others.
The company’s mantra was that it was easier to ask forgiveness than seek permission. In Australia, the files showed that Uber knew it was illegal when it launched, yet it powered ahead and fiercely lobbied state governments to change laws and legitimise the service. For its part, Uber acknowledged ‘mistakes’ and ‘missteps’ and said that, with the appointment of a new CEO in 2017, the company has completely changed how it operates.
More than just shedding light on Uber’s early operations, the Uber Files shows the ease with which executives were able to gain access to and influence democratically elected leaders, even as Uber was brazenly flouting local laws, upending workers’ rights and trying to hobble government investigations. In short, the investigation offers an X-ray into how multinational companies game the system — another example from an ICIJ investigation showing how money and power can buy access not available to the rest of us.
The fact that the whistleblower who leaked the files was a former top lobbyist for the company is telling. He told The Guardian that the ease with which Uber could penetrate the upper echelons of political power was ‘deeply unfair’ and ‘anti-democratic’.
The Uber Files is a story that could only be told by a global coalition of journalists, working together, to show that the issue is bigger than a single company in a single country. It’s a playbook that thrives on opacity and is used time and again.
Parliamentarians across Europe and elsewhere are now pushing for inquiries and calling for increased transparency in corporate lobbying. In the meantime, journalists working with ICIJ will continue shining a light into the dark corners where business and politics collide.
Hamish Boland-Rudder, ICIJ Online Editor
This was featured in our eNewsletter of 22 July, click to read the full edition.
If you want to receive this newsletter direct to your inbox, subscribe here.