Tesla has sued a former employee , accusing him of stealing data about the operation of its “Autopilot” and giving it to a Chinese rival company.
According to court documents , the former employee , named Guangzhi Cao, admitted that he had access to Tesla source code and that he kept the files on his drive. However, he denies that his actions amounted to trade secret theft. Tesla, on the other hand, has a different view. In its complaint, it says that the autopilot feature, which Cao was working on, is the “jewel of Tesla” and that Cao tried to transfer this important trade secret to Xiaopeng Motors, the company where he now works.
In November 2018, Xiaopeng Motors offered Cao a job. The company alleges that before he left the company, Cao uploaded full copies of the source code related to Tesla's Autopilot to his personal iCloud account. The company claims that the former employee stole more than 300,000 files and directories, violating Tesla policies and the agreement between the company and Cao.
This is not the first time that Xiaopeng Motors, also known as XMotors or XPeng, has been involved in such cases. Xiaopeng Motors is a Chinese electric vehicle company. Last year, a former Apple employee was arrested, accused of stealing data and transferring it to the Chinese company. The employee admitted to taking the material and announced his intention to move to China to work for Xiaopeng Motors.
Xiaopeng Motors is not directly accused of any infringement. However, in the complaint, Tesla says that the Chinese company is trying to copy its ideas: “With the aim of beating Tesla, XMotors designed its vehicles based on Tesla’s open source patents, while simultaneously imitating Tesla’s design, technology , and even business model.”
The Chinese company claims that it has nothing to do with the actions of its potential employees and that the accusations against it are unfounded.
