Tesla files lawsuit against former employee amid claims of stolen company secrets: 'Innovation must be earned'

Tesla is suing one of its former employees, accusing them of theft of highly sensitive trade secrets and intellectual property regarding artificial intelligence.

According to a complaint filed on June 11 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Tesla argued that Proception, Inc. and its co-founder Zhongjie "Jay" Li illegally acquired, used, and exploited trade secrets pertaining to its Optimus program. Li was employed as a technical lead at Tesla from August 2022 to September 2024 before leaving to co-found Proception.

As noted in the filing, Tesla has alleged that while employed at the company, Li worked on several "key components" of Optimus, including advanced robotic hand sensors. According to Tesla, before Li left Tesla to begin work at Proception, he downloaded integral files related to the Optimus program onto two separate smartphones.

In March, Li authored an article announcing the completion of the functional prototype of advanced humanoid robotic hands.

"Our unique approach to data collection — where we collect data through human interaction rather than teleoperating robots—has significantly increased the efficiency of our data gathering," Li wrote.

This announcement is at the center of Tesla's legal argument. The company argues that Proception's ability to develop the prototype in just a few months is due to Li's theft of IP related to Optimus. Tesla noted that Proception's prototype bears a "striking resemblance" to the designs that Li and his team worked on while still at Tesla.

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Tesla Optimus is a humanoid robot project that is designed to perform tasks considered unsafe, repetitive, or boring for humans. It utilizes AI developed from Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology for navigation and decision-making, and it is intended for both industrial and household applications.

"Tesla brings this action to not only protect what has been built but to uphold the basic rules of technological competition," the filing read. "Innovation must be earned, not stolen. If misconduct like this goes unchecked, it risks incentivizing theft over creation and undermining the very ecosystem that drives progress."

As of June 25, Li and Proception have yet to publicly comment on Tesla's complaint. The ongoing litigation against Proception is just the latest of newsworthy events that have affected Tesla in 2025. Following several controversies surrounding CEO Elon Musk, with his increased involvement in politics making some people view the brand unfavorably, Tesla revealed a massive decline in car sales in its first quarter sales report.

It remains to be seen if this lawsuit will impact either company's ability to integrate its AI technology for consumer use in the near future.