Tesla Sues Zoox And Ex-Employees, Accuses Them Of Stealing Company Secrets

BY Brad Anderson | Posted on

Tesla has filed a pair of lawsuits against self-driving startup Zoox and a number of former employees.

In one of the suits, filed with the US district court for Northern California, Tesla claims that four former employees, Scott Turner, Sydney Cooper, Christian Dement and Craigh Emigh, provided confidential information to Zoox. It is claimed that this info has allowed Zoox to accelerate the development of its autonomous technologies.

Turner previously worked as a manager at a Tesla distribution center and allegedly sent confidential documents about the automaker’s receiving and inventory procedures to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you…” in the subject. He is also alleged to have sent “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to himself.

When Turner secured a position at Zoox, he is claimed to have recruited Cooper and Dement and also sent an additional four emails to himself with confidential documents under the subject ‘Good Stuff.’ Cooper is also accused of having sent confidential documents to Turner and Zoox before leaving Tesla.

The Verge reports that Emigh also mistakenly sent an email to Cooper’s old Tesla email address with a modified version of a proprietary Tesla document attached but altered to include the Zoox logo.

None of the four employees or Zoox itself have commented on the lawsuits, and Tesla has also declined to comment.

A separate lawsuit was filed by the Palo Alto automaker on Wednesday against Guangzhi Cao, a former member of Tesla’s Autopilot team. It is claimed that Cao uploaded complete copies of Autopilot-related source code to his iCloud account before leaving for Chinese startup Xpeng.

BMW X7 Excels At Being Both A Family Hauler And An Executive Limo

It won’t have your heart racing, but the X7 excels at being a luxurious, spacious and extremely comfortable ride.
Study Suggests Millennials Buck The Trend Of Trucks And SUVs

Of the 10 most popular vehicles driven by millennials, only two of them weren’t sedans.
Tesla Sues Zoox And Ex-Employees, Accuses Them Of Stealing Company Secrets

Tesla claims former employees stole documents related to certain procedures and its Autopilot system.
Golf GTI TCR Is Volkswagen’s Hot Hatch At Its (Very) Best

The TCR is, in all likelihood, VW’s sendoff to the seventh-gen Golf GTI – and it’s pretty darn special.
Polestar 0 Is A Boxy And Edgy Concept For A Future Family EV

While this is an intriguing design, the chances of Polestar actually making something like that are exactly zero.
Electric Porsche Cayenne Considered, Could Be Sold Alongside Outgoing Model

If it gets the green light, the Cayenne will become Porsche’s fourth electric vehicle.
China’s New-Energy Vehicles Are Being Crippled By Quality Issues

China’s manufacturers built almost 1.3 million NEVs last year – and recalled 10.8 per cent of them.
New Porsche Design Watch Is For The Globetrotter In Your Life

The Porsche Design 1919 Globetimer UTC can display two time zones and costs almost $7,000.
China’s Evergrande Wants To Be World’s Largest Electric Vehicle Group

Evergrande thinks big and wants to establish itself as a Tesla rival within three years.
Porsche To Launch More 911 GT Variants Than Ever Before

The expanded GT portfolio boosted sales of the 991, so Porsche will go down the same route.