Tesla has filed a federal lawsuit against a former employee’s startup, accusing him of stealing confidential information tied to the company’s humanoid robot program, Optimus.
The complaint, filed on June 11 in the Northern District of California, alleges that Zhongjie “Jay” Li, a former engineer with Tesla from 2022 to 2024, misappropriated trade secrets before leaving to launch a competing robotics firm, Proception Inc.
According to the complaint, first reported by Bloomberg, Tesla says Li was part of the Optimus program’s sensor engineering team and had access to highly sensitive technical data, especially regarding robotic hand design—a component CEO Elon Musk has described as one of the most advanced and valuable in the project.
Tesla claims that in the final weeks of his employment, Li downloaded confidential files related to robotic hand development onto two personal smartphones and accessed internal systems just hours before his departure.
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Next generation Optimus hand! pic.twitter.com/AAN9fjdSUJ
Just six days after leaving Tesla, Li incorporated Proception in Palo Alto, California. Within five months, the startup claimed to have developed humanoid robotic hands that Tesla says bear a “striking resemblance” to those built under its Optimus program. The company argues that this timeline would not have been possible without leveraging misappropriated intellectual property.
“Rather than build through legitimate innovation, trial, and technical rigor, Defendants took a shortcut: theft,” Tesla’s attorneys wrote. They further assert that Proception used the stolen data to bypass years of research and billions in investment, gaining an unfair advantage in the competitive humanoid robotics space.
Tesla is seeking compensatory and exemplary damages and has requested a court order barring Li and Proception from using any of its proprietary materials. The lawsuit also cites violations under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and California’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act, along with claims of unjust enrichment and improperly disrupting Tesla’s existing or potential business relationships.
Proception, a Y Combinator-backed company, markets itself as building the world’s most advanced humanoid robotic hands, aiming to revolutionize human-robot interaction. As of now, Li and his company have not responded publicly to the lawsuit, and no legal counsel has appeared on their behalf in court filings.
The case is Tesla Inc. v. Proception Inc. et al., Case No. 5:25-cv-04963, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
You can read the full complaint below.
