Pedestrians walk past a closed Tesla Inc. store in Palm Desert, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 7, 2019. Tesla has cut prices of the Model 3 and its other vehicles several times this year to offset the lower incentives, most recently by announcing a plan to close most stores and shift all ordering online. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Tesla Inc accused one of its former engineers of stealing highly confidential autopilot information before bolting to Chinese rival Xpeng Motors, eight months after one of Apple Inc’s ex-employees was charged with taking sensitive robocar secrets to a new job with that same company.
Allegations that a second Silicon Valley giant was betrayed by one of its own workers bound for the same Chinese startup come amid a major US crackdown on Chinese corporate espionage. The rivalry in the electric-car market, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, has intensified with the two nations locked in a trade war.
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