Former Tesla Employee Admits Uploading Autopilot Source Code to iCloud

Sean O’Kane, writing for The Verge:

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.

Uploading very sensitive source code to your personal iCloud account, then going to work for a Chinese competitor — sure sure, nothing suspicious about that.

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.

I’m starting to think this XPeng company isn’t on the up and up.

★ Friday, 12 July 2019