Tesla is suing its former Engineer for allegedly stealing the company’s supercomputer’s secrets

According to Bloomberg, Tesla is suing former engineer Alexander Yatskov for allegedly obtaining "secret and rigorously guarded" knowledge of the company's supercomputer technology, Project Dojo. Tesla accuses Yatskov of downloading…

By Nivedita Bangari

May 8, 2022

2 min read

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According to Bloomberg, Tesla is suing former engineer Alexander Yatskov for allegedly obtaining “secret and rigorously guarded” knowledge of the company’s supercomputer technology, Project Dojo. Tesla accuses Yatskov of downloading the information to his devices and refusing to return it, according to a copy of the complaint.

Yaakov, who Tesla claims lied on his CV regarding his job history and abilities, joined Tesla as a thermal engineer in January and helped develop Dojo’s cooling systems. Tesla’s neural net training computer, Dojo, analyses massive volumes of data to train the AI software in Tesla’s self-driving cars.

Tesla claims that all engineers sign a non-disclosure agreement that prohibits them from disclosing or storing confidential Dojo information, which Tesla claims Yatskov has broken by allegedly “removing Tesla confidential information from work devices and accounts, accessing it on his devices, and creating Tesla documents containing confidential Project Dojo details on a personal computer.” Yakov was also detected sending emails with sensitive Tesla material from his email address to his work email, according to the firm.

When Tesla approached Yatskov about the problem, he acknowledged storing secret information on his own devices

Tesla subsequently placed Yatskov on administrative leave, effective April 6, 2022, and requested him to bring in his equipment so that any stolen data could be recovered.

In an attempt to hide any evidence against him, Yatskov allegedly provided Tesla with a “dummy” laptop. This alleged fake was meant to “appear like it may have accessed solely inoffensive Tesla material, such as an offer letter,” and contained none of the information in question.

On May 2nd, Yatskov resigned from his position. Tesla is seeking compensatory and exemplary damages, as well as a court order for Yatskov to hand over the sensitive information.