>Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, who could now spill beans on all sorts of unsuspected malfeasance. At this point what has he got to lose? If he decides to cooperate with google things could get very interesting.

Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, because Uber has the capital to go after. I Am Not An IP Lawyer, but I'd guess that if Levendowski had substantial assets, he'd be named a party in the complaint.

My guess is that this firing is mainly a move to improve Uber's political capital "Look we fired the bad apple". I'd assume Uber has probably figured out how to tie his interests into cooperating with him (to the detriment of exposing IP theft) though maybe granting him equity or some sort of financial incentive.

Uber: Hey, we're really sorry that things didn't work out but "here's some equity for the time that you worked here" oh and by the way here's the estimated value of that equity if we win the lawsuit or don't win the law suit.