Tesla Sues Former Employees for Stealing Autopilot Codes, Data

Tesla has filed two lawsuits against its former employees, for stealing autopilot codes and propriety information.

Tesla has sued former employees for stealing trade secrets and propriety information. Image used for representation.

(Photo: AP)

Tesla has filed two separate lawsuits against some of its former employees, for allegedly stealing autopilot codes and propriety information from the company, news agency Reuters reported on Thursday, 21 March.

In the first case, a former Tesla engineer is accused of copying the source code for its self-driving technology before joining a Chinese self-driving car startup this January.

According to the report, the engineer, named Guangzhi Cao copied more than 30,000 files related to Tesla’s autopilot source code and joined China’s Xiaopeng Motors Technology Company Ltd in January.

The second case is against four of Tesla's former employees and self-driving car startup Zoox, which its lawyers filed on Wednesday, 20 March. Tesla has alleged that the employees stole propriety information and trade secrets for developing warehousing, logistics and inventory control operations, the Reuters report suggested.

Xiaopeng, the Chinese auto maker said in a statement that it was not aware of Cao's alleged misconduct and an internal investigation has been launched on the same. It also said that the company fully respects any company's intellectual rights and confidential information.

Cao has been working as the ‘Head of Perception’ at Xiaopeng motors. The lawsuit says that Xiaopeng motors has five former Tesla employees working for it.

Cao and Zoox, when reached out to by the news agency, were not available for a comment.

(with inputs from Reuters.)