Tesla Inc. sued a previous engineer boasting he illegally transferred confidential info on its supercomputer engineering to his own computer system and turned above a “dummy” notebook for inspection to address up the theft.
Tesla is building an in-household supercomputer, dubbed Undertaking Dojo, to deal with huge quantities of data, such as video clip from Tesla cars and trucks, and employing it to generate autonomous driving computer software. Alexander Yatskov was hired in January as a thermal engineer to enable style and design cooling systems for the laptop, which generates a good deal of warmth, Tesla claimed in the grievance.
“These thermal types and facts are private and tightly guarded in just Tesla,” the electrical-vehicle maker explained.
But Tesla mentioned Yatskov admitted to downloading private information and facts from his Tesla products to his individual equipment, just after he was confronted. He turned in excess of a “dummy” pc for inspection by Tesla to test and address his tracks, the corporation explained.
Yatskov quit on May 2 and has refused to return the details, Tesla reported in the grievance.
When achieved by phone, Yatskov mentioned he wasn’t mindful of the criticism and declined to promptly comment on it.
Tesla also accused Yatskov of lying in his resume about his abilities and function knowledge. He also breached a non-disclosure settlement that barred him from disclosing trade techniques, Tesla claimed.
“This is a scenario about illicit retention of trade secrets and techniques by an staff who, in his small time at Tesla, by now demonstrated a track document of lying and then lying all over again by delivering a ‘dummy’ unit to attempt and protect his tracks,” Tesla explained in its complaint.
Tesla is looking for compensatory and exemplary damages and an buy that would cease Yatskov from disseminating its trade strategies and immediate him to return all proprietary info.
The situation is Tesla Inc. v. Yatskov, 5:22-cv-02725, U.S. District Courtroom, Northern District of California (San Jose).