According to media reports, Tesla has filed a lawsuit in a California federal court against a former engineer and his startup, accusing them of stealing trade secrets related to the company's Optimus humanoid robot project to develop competing robotic hand technology.
The lawsuit alleges that ex-employee Jay Li stole confidential Tesla files before his departure and used the information to help his startup, Proception, "bypass normal development processes" in robotic hand design. Li worked on Tesla's Optimus sensor team from 2022 to 2024.
"Through Jay Li's theft," the lawsuit states, "defendant Proception achieved in a matter of months what took Tesla four years, hundreds of employees, and billions of dollars to develop."
Neither Tesla's legal team nor representatives from Proception have immediately responded to requests for comment. According to LinkedIn, Jay Li is the founder and CEO of Proception. He did not respond to comment requests sent outside regular business hours.
Tesla emphasized in the filing that it has invested "enormous resources" into developing the AI-powered humanoid robot, Optimus.
Despite no longer working on the Optimus robotic hand project at the time of his resignation, Tesla alleges that Jay Li downloaded confidential documents related to the robot's hand motion research shortly before leaving the company.
Tesla's lawyers argued in the complaint that Li's actions constitute not only unlawful misappropriation of trade secrets but also a calculated attempt to exploit Tesla's investments, insights, and intellectual property for personal and commercial gain.
The lawsuit notes that Jay Li founded Proception just six days after leaving Tesla, and that the startup claimed within five months to have developed robotic hand capabilities. Tesla contends that Proception's robotic hand design bears "striking similarities" to its own.
Tesla is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court injunction to prevent Jay Li and Proception from further misusing its trade secrets.
In the field of robotics, replicating the dexterity of the human hand remains one of the most formidable challenges. Tesla envisions Optimus performing a wide range of tasks, including factory work at Tesla's Gigafactories, running errands like grocery shopping, and even child care. In a January earnings call, CEO Elon Musk stated that Optimus is equipped with the most advanced robotic hands ever created and predicted that the robot could ultimately become the primary driver of Tesla's market value.
