Tesla employee posts Tesla source code publicly to prove how unsafe and
poorly engineered Tesla cars are
Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, admitted in a court filing
this week that he uploaded zip files containing Autopilot source code
to his personal iCloud account in late 2018 while still working for
the company. Tesla sued Cao earlier this year for allegedly stealing
trade secrets related to Autopilot and bringing them to Chinese EV
startup Xiaopeng Motors, also known as Xmotors or XPeng, which is
backed by tech giant Alibaba.
Cao
denied stealing sensitive information from the automaker in the same
filing. His legal team argued he “made extensive efforts to delete
and/or remove any such Tesla files prior to his separation from
Tesla.” Cao is now the “head of perception” at XPeng, where he is
“[d]eveloping and delivering autonomous driving technologies for
production cars,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
"Tesla’s subpoenaed documents from Apple that allegedly help prove the
employee stole info"
According to a joint filing from the two parties that was also filed
this week, Tesla has subpoenaed documents from Apple. While Apple is
not involved in this case, a former employee who worked on the tech
company’s secretive autonomous car project was charged by the FBI with
stealing trade secrets last July.
That employee allegedly Air Dropped sensitive data to his wife’s
laptop and was also caught on CCTV leaving Apple’s campus with a box
of equipment. He had left his job at Apple to take a position at XPeng
before being arrested. Cao was also a senior image scientist for Apple
for two years before he joined Tesla, according to his LinkedIn
profile.
The
suit comes at a time when the US is locked in a trade war with China
and has accused the nation and some of its biggest companies of
committing so-called “economic espionage.” Tesla, Apple, XPeng, and a
lawyer for Cao did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement to The Verge earlier this year, XPeng said it opened an
internal investigation into Tesla’s allegations, and that it “fully
respects any third-party’s intellectual property rights and
confidential information.” XPeng said it “by no means caused or
attempted to cause Mr. Cao to misappropriate trade secrets,
confidential and proprietary information of Tesla, whether such
allegations by Tesla being true or not,” and said it “was not aware of
any alleged misconduct by Mr. Cao.”
Tesla
filed its suit against Cao this past March. The former employee was
one of around 40 people with direct access to the source code for
Autopilot, which is Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system. The
company claimed Cao began uploading “complete copies of Tesla’s
Autopilot-related source code” to his personal iCloud account late
last year. Cao zipped and moved more than 300,000 files and
directories related to Autopilot, according to the complaint.
"Cao
was one of around 40 employees with direct access to Autopilot source
code"
At
the end of 2018, Cao allegedly deleted 120,000 files off his work
computer, disconnected his personal iCloud account, and deleted his
browser history all around the same time he accepted a job with XPeng,
an EV startup based in China that makes cars that look very similar to
Tesla’s. Tesla also claimed Cao recruited another Autopilot employee
to XPeng in February.
Cao
admits he “used his personal iCloud account to create backup copies of
certain Tesla information in 2018” in the new court filing. He also
admits he created zip files containing Autopilot source code in late
2018, and confirmed that XPeng extended him an offer letter on
December 12th. He says he disconnected his personal iCloud account
from his Tesla-issued computer “on or around December 26,” and that he
kept logging into Tesla’s networks between December 27 and January
1st, 2019.
While
Cao does not specify when he formally accepted the job at XPeng, Tesla
says his last day was January 3rd. He also denies poaching any
employees from the Autopilot team.
Cao
“further admits that he deleted certain files stored on his Tesla
computer and cleared his web browser history prior to his separation
from employment with Tesla but denies that any of this activity
constitutes any kind of ‘misconduct,’” according to the filing, though
he disagrees with the number of files that Tesla alleged he stole. He
also claims he “made extensive efforts to delete and/or remove any
such Tesla files” from his personal iCloud account before he left
Tesla, though he does not say if he deleted all the files.
Related
Chinese EV startup XPeng is at the center of major trade secret
disputes with Apple and Tesla
In
the joint filing, Cao’s lawyers argue that any source code or other
confidential information that remained on his devices after he left
Tesla would only be there “as a result of inadvertence.” They also
argue that Cao “did not access and has made no use whatsoever of any
of the ‘Autopilot Trade Secrets’” after he left the company, nor did
he transfer any information to XPeng.
According
to the joint filing, Cao has already given Tesla a “subset of his
electronic devices or digital images of such devices,” and access to
his Gmail account for forensic analysis, which is already underway.
XPeng also “voluntarily produced to Tesla a digital image of [Cao’s]
work laptop.”
“This
is a lawsuit about routine employee offboarding issues that could and
should have been resolved by Tesla either through its own human
resources or information technology policies,” Cao’s lawyers write in
the joint filing. “Despite the vague innuendo in Tesla’s complaint
(and in its recitation of the ‘facts’ above) that its trade secrets
are ‘at risk’ and that Tesla ‘must learn what Cao has done with
Tesla’s IP,’ the truth of this case is that Cao has done precisely
nothing with Tesla’s IP. Prior to his departure from Tesla, Cao
diligently and earnestly attempted to remove any and all Tesla
intellectual property and source code from his own personal devices.”