Rivian
Tesla has sued its competitor Rivian for theft of trade secrets. Tesla says around 70 people have left Tesla to go to Rivian, including 22 in the past four months. And Tesla claims that several of those employees took confidential documents with them as they walked out the door.
Rivian has become perhaps Tesla’s most formidable rival among new electric vehicle companies. The company announced a $ 2.5 billion fundraising round earlier this month, in addition to $ 2.85 billion raised last year. The company is working on a van, an SUV, and a delivery van for corporate customers, all with batteries. Amazon, a Rivian investor, has already ordered 100,000 of Rivian’s delivery trucks.
With a lot of work to do and billions in the bank, Rivian needs to hire at a fast pace. Unsurprisingly, Tesla workers have been a prime target of Rivian’s recruiters. Tesla says it respects Rivian’s right to recruit Tesla employees, but argues that Rivian has not been playing fair.
For example, Tesla alleges that shortly before his departure from Tesla, an employee “received confidential confidential and trade secret bonus information for Tesla sales personnel for use in Rivian, including base pay rates, target bonuses , capital rewards for new employees and incentives-based compensation numbers. ” Obviously, knowing Tesla’s salary scales would give Rivian an advantage in recruiting Tesla workers.
Another employee allegedly took “candidate lists, Tesla recruiting organization charts, information on Tesla recruiters, [and] companies from which Tesla draws candidates. “
A third employee allegedly helped herself “fabricate project management, control specifications for manufacturing equipment, specifications for manufacturing robots, and requirements for manufacturing equipment.” A fourth took a list of Tesla employees with experience in cargo networks, some of whom were recruited by Rivian shortly thereafter.
Tesla says these four people may just be the tip of the iceberg. The company says it is still investigating the actions of other employees who recently left Tesla for Rivian and will add some of them as defendants if they discover evidence of misconduct.
In most cases, employees allegedly downloaded documents from the Tesla network in the past few days before leaving Tesla, then sent them to personal email addresses. When Tesla investigators confronted them, some admitted taking confidential information, while others maintained their innocence, Tesla says.
The employees named in the lawsuit worked for Tesla in California, which has refused to enforce uncompetitive clauses in employment contracts. Therefore, there is little that Tesla, or any California company, can do to prevent employees from leaving a competitor and taking away any confidential information that occurs to them. But California courts enforce confidentiality agreements and trade secret laws. So if Tesla can prove that these employees took confidential documents to Rivian, they could be in serious legal trouble.
