Tesla is suing its former employee, Sterling Anderson, for breach of contract. Anderson is the former Director of Autopilot Software for the electric car company. Tesla is claiming that Anderson attempted to steal proprietary information and recruit other employees of the company.
Anderson, Christopher Urmson, and Aurora Innovation are listed as the defendants in the lawsuit filed by Tesla. The company filed the lawsuit on Thursday at Santa Clara, California, claiming that Anderson was planning to come up with his own self-driving car company even while he was still employed at Tesla.
Anderson's Function At Tesla
Anderson left Tesla back in December after three years of working for the company. He was replaced by 11-year Apple veteran Chris Lattner. While he was still with the company, Anderson was in charge of the Autopilot software. He helped the company remain competitive with Google's own autonomous driving technology by incorporating fleet data. In an MIT Tech Review conference, Anderson explained how Tesla was able to download driving data from its fleet of vehicles.
Tesla Claims Anderson Is Poaching Its Employees
Tesla says that Anderson is collaborating with Christopher Urmson, former lead of Google's self-driving program, to found their autonomous driving start-up called Aurora Innovation. The company said the duo attempted to recruit at least 12 engineers to join their company. Two Tesla engineers already confirmed they will be joining Anderson's startup.
The company further says that Anderson attempted to recruit several Tesla engineers even after he already left the company. Anderson will be the one to identify the engineers, while Urmson will be the one who will attempt to recruit them. Tesla says this same tactic was used by the two when recruiting staff from Google; this time it will be Urmson who will identify which ones to recruit and Anderson will be the one to get in touch.
Anderson Accused Of Stealing Properitary Information
Aside from recruiting its employees, Tesla claims that Anderson also transferred proprietary information into his personal hard drives, and did not return them when he left the company. The company also says that Anderson modified timestamps on his files and erased others "in an attempt to conceal his misdeeds."
When asked for a comment, Anderson has this to say: "Tesla's meritless lawsuit reveals both a startling paranoia and an unhealthy fear of competition. This abuse of the legal system is a malicious attempt to stifle a competitor and destroy personal reputations. Aurora looks forward to disproving these false allegations in court and to building a successful self-driving business."
