Tesla Alleges Ex-Optimus Engineer Stole Robotic Tech Secrets, Founded Competing Firm

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) has sued an ex-engineer who worked on its Optimus team, alleging that he stole confidential information about the company’s humanoid robot and founded a rival startup.

Tesla’s shares were down 0.12% at the time of writing.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Tesla said in its filing in a San Francisco Federal Court that Zhongjie “Jay” Li, who worked with the company between August 2022 and September 2024, downloaded files related to the Optimus program on two personal smartphones.

Within a week of leaving Tesla, Li founded his firm, Proception Inc. Tesla alleged that Li’s firm announced a product featuring an arm that bears a “striking” resemblance to its own.

“Within just five months, Proception publicly claimed to have ‘successfully built’ advanced humanoid robotic hands – hands that bear a striking resemblance to the designs Li worked on at Tesla,” the company said in its complaint.

One of the challenges that companies working on humanoid robots have been facing is creating a hand that functions as closely as possible to a human hand.

In an earnings call earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Optimus has the most sophisticated hand yet on a humanoid robot. This was after he revealed that the Optimus robot’s hands are designed to have 22 degrees of freedom, which is just five degrees less than a human hand.

The lawsuit against its former engineer comes days after Tesla’s Optimus program head, Milan Kovac, resigned. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Autopilot veteran, was named as the new lead for the Optimus team.

Kovac said in a post on X that his departure is due to his desire to be closer to his family. He called it the “most difficult decision” of his life and added that he continues to support Tesla and Musk. 

Tesla’s stock has declined over 19% year-to-date, but it is up nearly 84% over the past 12 months.

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