--- title: "Tesla Sues Four Former Employees For Stealing Trade Secrets" description: "## Trade Secrets" date: "2019-03-21" modified: "2019-03-21" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/tesla-lawsuit-four-former-employees" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "electric cars" - "elon musk" - "lawsuit" - "tesla" --- # Tesla Sues Four Former Employees For Stealing Trade Secrets ![According to a lawsuit, Tesla is accusing four former employees of stealing proprietary information and handing it over to their current employer Zoox.]() *\Image: Tesla\* ## Trade Secrets According to a [lawsuit filed yesterday]() in the U.S. district court for North California, the Elon Musk-led electric car company Tesla is accusing four former employees of stealing proprietary information and trade secrets — and handing the material over to Zoox, a rival self-driving transport startup. "The theft here was blatant and intentional," Tesla wrote in a filing, as [reported by *Business Insider*](). "In the process, they misappropriated Tesla's trade secrets, violated their agreements with Tesla, and breached their duties of loyalty, all with the knowledge and support of Zoox." ## NDAs For Days More than 100 former Tesla employees now work for Zoox, according to *BI*'s reporting, which is now valued at $3.2 billion. Tesla claims the four former workers stole "proprietary information and trade secrets to help Zoox leapfrog past years of work needed to develop and run its own warehousing, logistics, and inventory control operations." According to the filing, a former Tesla warehouse supervisor called Christian Dement forwarded documents to his personal email address with the subject line "good stuff." As per the lawsuit, the employees signed a non-disclosure agreement to keep Tesla information confidential and within one year of leaving the company. ## "Blatant and Intentional" The story is still developing. Neither Zoox nor Tesla have yet made public statements regarding the lawsuit. "While Tesla respects that employees may decide to pursue other employment opportunities, it must take action when current and former employees abuse their positions of trust and blatantly violate their legal and contractual obligations to Tesla," read the filing. **READ MORE:** [Tesla is suing former employees, accusing them of stealing confidential information and giving it to robo-taxi rival Zoox]() \[*Business Insider*\] **More on Tesla:** [Tesla Investors Sue Elon Musk For Twitter “Misstatements”]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()