Tesla sues former engineer for stealing Optimus robot secrets

The lawsuit, filed on June 11, accuses engineer Zhongjie “Jay” Li of stealing trade secrets related to the development of Tesla’s “advanced robotic hand sensor” to launch his startup, Proception, a Y Combinator-backed company that builds robotic hands.

The complaint states that Li, who worked at Tesla from August 2022 to September 2024, downloaded confidential information about Optimus on two separate personal smartphones.

Tesla said the former engineer stole secrets related to Optimus robotic hand technology. Photo: Gimochina

The complaint also adds that during his final few months at Tesla, Li researched “humanoid robotic hands” on his computer at work, in addition to searching the internet for venture capital and other sources of startup funding.

“Less than a week after he left Tesla, Proception was founded,” the complaint states. “And within five months, Proception publicly claimed to have ‘successfully built’ advanced humanoid robotic hands—hands that bore a striking resemblance to designs Li had worked on at Tesla.”

Proception's website states that the company is working to “revolutionize human-robot interaction by building the world's most advanced humanoid hand.”

TechCrunch reporters have reached out to Proception and Tesla for more information but have yet to receive a response.

The world's richest man has yet to commercialize his humanoid robot. Photo: Tesla

Tesla's Optimus robot program has been in a bit of a tailspin since the company announced it was building a humanoid robot, the Tesla Bot, in 2021.

In 2022, the company said the bot, along with other new products, would be introduced in 2023. But Optimus is still in development.

In July 2024, Tesla's Elon Musk said the company would start selling robots in 2026. Just a few months later, at Tesla's "We, Robot" event in October 2024, the Tesla Optimus robots in attendance were largely controlled by outside humans.