In a case quite similar to the Apple-Rivos issue, Tesla is suing Alexander Yatskov for stealing information on the project dojo. The project in dispute by the two parties in this case 1 is a supercomputer chip for training the AI in self-driving cars. The defendant is an ex-thermal engineer who worked on the project dojo during his brief days with Tesla.
The American company claims that the plaintiff lied on his resume before starting work with the firm. Due to working on the project dojo’s cooling system with the Tesla team, Yatskov could easily gain access to information on the cooling system of the dojo chip. On his resignation, the plaintiff supposedly kept for himself certain information regarding the AI training chip’s cooling system.
After contacting the defendant to return the information before his resignation, he denied having access to any of such information. Tesla claims that the information in question was sent via email to a personal device (laptop) belonging to the defendant. According to Tesla, when they put in effort to retrieve the stolen information, Yatskov presented the company with a “dummy laptop.” The dummy laptop in question only contained information from Tesla that serves no use to the case and isn’t a matter of interest.
By making these allegations, the EV manufacturing company claims that Yatskov violated a worker non-disclosure agreement. This agreement clearly states that engineers with Tesla cannot disclose information regarding Tesla’s projects to external bodies. Neither can store any confidential information relating to the company or its activities on personal devices. Tesla is suing Yatskov to enable them to retrieve the information stolen by him before it gets to the competition.
