A former Apple employee accused of stealing self-contained vehicle secrets



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A former Apple employee allegedly stole trade secrets from the company with the intention of bringing them to a new employer, The Mercury News reports today. The materials involved the technology of autonomous vehicles – a case on which Apple would have worked for years under the seal of secrecy.

Xiaolang Zhang was arrested by federal agents at the San Jose International Airport after buying a last-minute ticket. China aboard Hainan Airlines. According to a tweet of Oakland-based journalist Henry K. Lee, Zhang took secret documents from Apple while he was on paternity leave, telling authorities that he had placed data on his wife's laptop. He was charged today with stealing trade secrets in the US District Court of Northern California.

Both sources claim that Zhang was going to work for XMotors, a company that claims to build smart, fully electric cars for young people. generation. "XMotors is also known as Xiaopeng Motors, is listed as having offices in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, as well as Mountain View, California, but has a relatively spartan website." His Twitter account says he's counting Alibaba, Foxconn and IDG Capital as investors, and developed an electric car called XPeng G3.

According to the Mercury News, Zhang received a "broad access to confidential internal databases" as part of his work on a Autonomous Cars Team After informing Apple that it would leave the company and go to work for XMotors, Apple's investigators searched its two phones and laptop. He had aggressively uploaded confidential files, in addition to visiting Apple's labs and removing items during paternity leave. Zheng reportedly admitted to taking the ob jets and secret documents, and was trying to leave the country when he was arrested by the FBI

A LinkedIn profile apparently owned by Zhang suggests that he had been working with Apple since December 2015, and that he had already spent more than four years at Marvell Semiconductor. His specialties included chip architecture and system solutions, including high-speed interfaces and card designs. The specific documents and items that it has taken from Apple are unknown and are likely to remain under seal during the criminal proceedings.

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