Tesla is in the news again. There’s nothing new about that, as it has dominated headlines lately for it’s 2020 production numbers, the fact it is delivering Chinese made vehicles inside China, and their stock price, which has ballooned to astronomical levels in the past 12 months.

Friday the EV giant filed sued against a former employee named Alex Khatilov for stealing trade secrets. Specifically, Tesla said Khatilov stole more than 6,000 files of software code.

Khatilov barely had time to get to know his cubicle mates, as he worked at Tesla for under two weeks at the end of 2020 and early 2021. He must have spent most of his time stealing data, because according to Tesla, he immediately began uploading the source code he allegedly stole as soon as he started working.

Remember, there’s always two sides to every story. According to Khatilov, he claimed he uploaded the files to Dropbox so he could access them on his personal computer, and he had now knowledge that was prohibited at Tesla. He also claimed he never shared the files with anyone.

The reason the information is so sensitive, and so guarded, is the code is used for back-end business and automation processes that Tesla claims would benefit competitors in a huge way. Tesla is famous for aggressively going after any former workers who they feel stole secrets from them.

The lawsuit didn’t affect Tesla’s stock price. It closed up 0.2% on Friday.

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