--- title: "Revealed: Tesla Competitor Paid Top Tesla Lawyer $30 Million to Defect" description: "Everyone has their price — and for one former Tesla lawyer, that price was upwards of $30 million." date: "2022-03-08" modified: "2022-03-08" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-luminar-lawyer" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "LIDAR sensor" - "luminar" - "tesla" - "the digest" --- # Revealed: Tesla Competitor Paid Top Tesla Lawyer $30 Million to Defect ![Everyone has their price — and for one former Tesla lawyer, that price was upwards of $30 million.]() *\Image: Getty Images\* ## In-Fighting Everyone has their price — and for one former Tesla lawyer, it was nearly $30 million. A [recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing]() reveals that former Tesla lawyer Alan Prescott accepted $29.5 million in stock options to defect from the electric car maker in favor of Luminar, a competitor that makes the laser sensors for self-driving cars. Along with the attractive stock benefits, Luminar — which in January [partnered with Mercedes-Benz]() — paid Prescott $205,700 in 2021 before raising his salary to $300,000 and giving him a comfortable $50,000 bonus as well. The poach is particularly noteworthy because Luminar and Tesla have had a strained and peculiar relationship for years. The company's offering — light detection and ranging software known as LIDAR, which use laser pulses to detect light and has a range of applications from self-driving cars to [oceanic remote sensing]() — is one that Tesla CEO [Elon Musk has trashed repeatedly]() in public, calling the tech "doomed" and "a fool's errand." Musk's trash-talking, however, was tempered last year when [*Bloomberg* reported](), per an anonymous insider source, that Luminar sold Tesla LIDAR sensors that were seen photographed atop a Model Y in Florida. After the photos were posted to Twitter, [Luminar's stock rose 9.8 percent](). https://twitter.com/gbrulte/status/1395356317410287617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1395356317410287617%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffuturism.com%2Felon-musk-lidar-tesla-model-y ## LIDARally Shaking The Luminar SEC filing in question provides a pretty detailed resumé for the turncoat lawyer: that he served as Tesla's acting general counsel for four years, and prior to that was senior legal counsel for Uber’s Advanced Technology Group and at Ford as a safety engineer. This automotive tech job-hopping lends credibility to the argument that when it comes to Prescott's buyout, it's business as usual for a Tesla competitor. But given Musk's contentious stance against the company — not to mention his alleged quiet patronage — it makes this story deliciously ironic. **READ MORE:** [Ex-Tesla Top Lawyer Gets $30 Million to Join Startup Luminar]() \[*Bloomberg Law*\] **More on the Luminar-Tesla fued:** [*Elon Musk Said Tesla Would Never Use This Tech That It’s Now Using*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()