Tesla Inc. sued a former engineer claiming he illegally transferred confidential data on its supercomputer expertise to his personal laptop and turned over a “dummy” laptop computer for inspection to cowl up the theft.

Tesla is growing an in-house supercomputer, dubbed Venture Dojo, to take care of large quantities of information, together with video from Tesla automobiles, and utilizing it to create autonomous driving software program. Alexander Yatskov was employed in January as a thermal engineer to assist design cooling methods for the pc, which generates a whole lot of warmth, Tesla stated within the criticism.

“These thermal designs and information are confidential and tightly guarded inside Tesla,” the electric-car maker stated.

However Tesla stated Yatskov admitted to downloading confidential data from his Tesla gadgets to his private gadgets, after he was confronted. He turned over a “dummy” laptop for inspection by Tesla to attempt to cowl his tracks, the corporate stated.

Yatskov give up on Might 2 and has refused to return the data, Tesla stated within the criticism.

When reached by telephone, Yatskov stated he wasn’t conscious of the criticism and declined to right away touch upon it.

Tesla additionally accused Yatskov of mendacity in his resume about his experience and work expertise. He additionally breached a non-disclosure settlement that barred him from disclosing commerce secrets and techniques, Tesla stated.

“It is a case about illicit retention of commerce secrets and techniques by an worker who, in his quick time at Tesla, already demonstrated a observe document of mendacity after which mendacity once more by offering a ‘dummy’ gadget to attempt to cowl his tracks,” Tesla stated in its criticism.

Tesla is searching for compensatory and exemplary damages and an order that might cease Yatskov from disseminating its commerce secrets and techniques and direct him to return all proprietary information.

The case is Tesla Inc. v. Yatskov, 5:22-cv-02725, U.S. District Court docket, Northern District of California (San Jose).