Tesla is suing Alexander Yatskov, his former engineer for illegally transferring Dojo supercomputer technology information to his own computers.
In addition to illegally transferring information, Alexander Yatskov is said to have handed over a “dummy” laptop for inspection to cover up the theft of the information.
Tesla is developing Project Dojo which is an in-house supercomputer to handle large amounts of data to create autonomous driving software. The data handled by Project Dojo includes videos of Tesla cars.
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Alexander Yatskov previously worked at Tesla as a thermal engineer designing cooling systems for computers.
“This design and thermal data is confidential and closely guarded within Tesla,” the electric car maker said.
Tesla said Yatskov admitted to downloading classified information from his Tesla device onto his personal device after he was confronted.
Alexander Yatskov is said to have turned over a “dummy” computer for Tesla to examine, trying to cover his tracks, the company said.
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Yatskov quit on May 2 and refused to return the information, Tesla said in its complaint.
When reached by phone, Yatskov said he was not aware of the complaint and declined to comment immediately.
Tesla also accused Yatskov of lying on his resume about his skills and work experience. He also violated a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited him from disclosing trade secrets, Tesla said.
