Google gave a powerful executive accused of sexual misconduct tens of millions of dollars and protected him before he was asked to resign from the company, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The company provided Android mobile software creator Andy Rubin a $90 million severance package and praised his services during a probe into sexual misconduct allegations leveled against him, the report notes, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Rubin began causally seeing a woman in 2012 he knew from Android, according to two executives briefed on the relationship. She wanted out of the relationship by 2013, the report noted, but she was worried about her career.
The woman agreed to meet him at a hotel in March of that year, where she said he pressured her into performing oral sex on him, the sources told TheNYT. The incident ended the relationship. The woman waited until 2014 to file a complaint, the sources said. Google began a probe shortly thereafter.
Google paid Rubin a severance package that was structured so that he received $2.5 million a month for the first two years and $1.25 million a month for the following two years. Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, cheered Rubin as an important cog to the development of the company.
“I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next,” Page said in a statement in October 2014, the month Rubin resigned. “With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users.”
This is not the only misconduct allegation leveled against Rubin. His ex-wife, Rie Rubin, claimed in a lawsuit filed this October that he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to women he was involved with during their marriage. The couple divorced in August.
Rie included a screenshot of an August 2015 email her husband sent to one woman.
“You will be happy being taken care of,” he wrote. “Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people.”
The executive was never told of any misconduct allegation at Google and left the company of his own accord, Rubin’s spokesman, Sam Singer, told TheNYT.
“Any relationship that Mr. Rubin had while at Google was consensual and did not involve any person who reported directly to him,” Singer added.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) poses for a photo with Google executives Larry Page, Sundar Pichai, Eric Schmidt, and early investor Ram Sriram at the Google campus in Mountain View, California September 27, 2015. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
“We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a staff-wide email to employees. “We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action.”
“We’ve also updated our policy to require all VPs and SVPs to disclose any relationship with a co-worker regardless of reporting line or presence of conflict,” Pichai noted in the email. A Google representative provided The Daily Caller News Foundation with a copy of the memo, which does not address the allegations reported in TheNYT piece.
The Silicon Valley company has battled other controversies recently. (RELATED: ‘Deeply Offensive’: Leaked Videos Show Google Leadership Reacting To Trump’s Victory)
A leaked video published in September appears to show several senior Google executives holding a large staff meeting following the 2016 election to reckon with President Donald Trump’s victory.
In the video, Google’s executives speculate about what motivated people to vote for Trump, as well as the role the company can play in informing people about the election. Executives also appear to discuss ways to defend what they called good values.
Google did not return a request for comment.
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