Tesla sues ex-Optimus engineer alleging theft of robotic trade secrets

Tesla Inc. A lawsuit against a former engineer with the company’s extreme Optimus program, accused of stealing secret information about the human robot and the establishment of a competitor’s startup in the Silicon Valley.
Zhongjie “Jay” worked in Tesla between August 2022 and September 2024, according to a complaint filed at the San Francisco Federal Court late on Wednesday. Tesla’s lawyers said in the complaint that I worked on “advanced automatic hands sensors – and was assigned some of the most sensitive technical data in the program.”
The lawsuit, which was also filed against Proception Inc, claims that in the weeks before his departure, Li downloaded the files related to Optimus on two personal smartphones and then formed his own company.
“After less than a week of leaving Tesla, excessive excess,” according to the complaint. “In just five months, the proception publicly claimed that it was” successfully “of his hands, the advanced human robots-which carry an amazing similarity to the designs that Li worked on in Tesla.”
Li, who is not included in his founder and CEO of the Proception Company on LinkedIn, did not respond to the comment requests sent outside the regular working hours on the platform. The company did not immediately respond to an email that is seeking to get a comment or a message that was sent through its website. The concept is read in Palu Alto, California.
Li attorneys or the company were not immediately visible in court files.
Making his hand as a hot is one of the biggest challenges in robots. Tesla intends to perform many tasks, from working in Electric Automant factories to dealing with daily tasks such as grocery shopping and vibrants. In inviting Tesla’s profits in January, CEO Elon Musk said that Optimus has the most advanced hand.
Musk said: “My long -term expectations are that Optius will be an overwhelming majority of the company’s value.”
The complaint exhibition includes an email of the Optimus Email from August 2024 to inform the employees that Tesla is monitored by the assets and networks of information technology, and will be accurately investigated in bad accidents or Tesla theft, including data and symbol, “.
Tesla’s lawyers said that Lee’s behavior “Li behavior is not only the embezzlement of illegal trade – it also constitutes a calculated effort to exploit Tesla investments, their visions and intellectual property to achieve their own commercial gains.”
Milan Kovak, head of engineering for Opsus, left Tesla last week, Bloomberg said for the first time. Ashok Eluswamy, which leads the Autopilot teams in Tesla, will bear the responsibility of Optimus.
Read more: president of Tesla’s Optimus Humanoid Robot Companey Companyy
The case is Tesla, Inc. Against Proception, Inc. et al, dockket no. 5: 25-CV-04963 (ND Cal.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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2025-06-12 20:52:00