David Do won’t be riding with Empower after all.
Less than two weeks after the former head of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission announced he was joining the controversial ride-hail app, Do has reversed course and walked away from the deal. The about-face came as Empower and its CEO, Joshua Sear, are staring down millions of dollars in fines in Washington D.C. for contempt of a court order to halt operations there.
Do had been tapped to serve as Empower’s senior vice president of government and regulatory affairs. The timing of that announcement was notable on its own. Sear disclosed the hire during the confirmation hearing for Midori Valdivia, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pick to replace Do at TLC. The commission responded immediately by reporting the move to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.
Now, in a joint statement with Empower, Do says the timing simply doesn’t work for him. He expressed support for the company’s stated goal of “improving economic opportunity for drivers while ensuring riders have access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation,” but added that the opportunity to pursue that goal together “does not work for me” at this point.
The withdrawal lands at a complicated moment for Empower, which has been aggressively pushing into New York City’s for-hire vehicle market by billing itself as a cheaper, pro-worker alternative to Uber and Lyft. TLC has called the operation illegal and issued a cease-and-desist letter. Now, the office of state Attorney General Letitia James has confirmed it is reviewing potential violations by the company.
City Councilmember Shawn Abreu piled on Thursday, writing to James with a list of charges against Empower. Abreu’s letter, obtained by The City, accused the company of failing to collect legally mandated fees and taxes, including sales taxes, congestion pricing surcharges, and airport fees on each trip. Abreu also charged that Empower is circumventing TLC fare structures and wage protections that apply to every other for-hire vehicle operator in the city.
“Empower is openly flouting the law,” Abreu wrote. “By its own admission, the company is facilitating more than 100,000 trips per week in New York City without adhering to the rules that govern every other for-hire vehicle service.”
TLC has not been subtle about its position. The commission set up a dedicated website warning that apps “such as Empower and WhatsApp Messenger are unlicensed software platforms” connecting drivers with trips outside the regulated system. Drivers using those apps risk losing their licenses and face fines of up to $500. Vehicle owners who do business with unlicensed apps could face fines up to $10,000.
The irony of Do’s aborted move is hard to miss. He ran TLC for the last several years after his nomination by then-Mayor Eric Adams in 2022, and during that time, the commission spent considerable energy pursuing Empower for defying its rules. Do even earned a TLC driver’s license during his tenure. Now he had been positioned to become the regulatory antagonist’s top lobbying hire in the city, only to bail out before getting in the car.
For Empower, the D.C. situation adds pressure to an already fraught New York rollout. The company launched in Washington in 2020 and is now fighting contempt charges there for continuing to operate in defiance of a court order. That legal exposure, now part of the public conversation around the company’s New York ambitions, may have made Do’s position untenable from the start.
Valdivia’s confirmation process continues in the meantime, with the new TLC chair inheriting an agency already deep in a fight over who gets to define the rules of the road for app-based transportation in this city. The question of whether Empower can keep running 100,000 weekly trips in New York while regulators close in is one she’ll have to answer sooner rather than later.
