Tesla sues Rivian for stealing secrets as electric car fight heats up
Rivian has raised more than $5 billion to challenge Tesla with electric trucks. …
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Tesla has sued competitor Rivian for theft of trade secrets. Tesla says that around 70 people have left Tesla for Rivian—including 22 in the last four months. And Tesla claims that several of those employees took confidential documents with them on their way out the door.
Rivian has emerged as perhaps Tesla’s most formidable rival among electric vehicle startups. The company announced a $2.5 billion round of fundraising earlier this month—on top of $2.85 billion raised last year. The company is working on a pickup truck, an SUV, and a delivery truck for corporate customers—all powered by batteries. Amazon, a Rivian investor, has already ordered 100,000 of Rivian’s delivery trucks.
With a ton of work to do and billions in the bank, Rivian needs to hire at a rapid 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 it argues that Rivian hasn’t been playing fair.
For example, Tesla alleges that shortly before her departure from Tesla, one employee “took highly sensitive trade secret compensation and bonus information for Tesla sales personnel for use at Rivian—including base pay rates, target bonuses, new hire equity awards, and incentive-based compensation numbers.” Obviously, knowing Tesla’s pay scales would give Rivian an advantage in recruiting Tesla workers.
Another employee allegedly took “candidate lists, Tesla recruiting organizational charts, information about Tesla recruiters, [and] companies from which Tesla sources candidates.”
A third employee allegedly helped herself to “manufacturing project management,
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