Tesla sues ex-Optimus engineer alleging theft of robotic trade secrets

Tesla Inc. sued a former engineer with the company’s highly secretive Optimus program, accusing him of stealing confidential information about the humanoid robot and setting up a rival startup in Silicon Valley. 

Zhongjie “Jay” Li worked at Tesla between August 2022 and September 2024, according to a complaint filed in a San Francisco Federal Court late Wednesday. Li worked on “advanced robotic hand sensors—and was entrusted with some of the most sensitive technical data in the program,” Tesla’s lawyers said in the complaint.