Tesla Accuses Employee Who Worked For Company For Less Than 2 Weeks Of Stealing Trade Secrets

Tesla Inc TSLA on Friday sued a former employee over claims of stealing trade secrets.

What Happened: The electric-vehicle maker accuses Alex Khatilov of stealing more than 6,000 files of software code. The suit was filed in a U.S. District Court in California.

Khatilov is a software engineer who worked at Tesla for under two weeks at the tail end of last year and the beginning of this year. Tesla alleges that he immediately began uploading source code when he took the job.

Khatilov says he uploaded files to Dropbox so he could access them on his personal computer and that he didn't know that using Dropbox was prohibited. He says he did not share the files with anyone.

Why It Matters: The code is used for back-end business and automation processes that Tesla says could be used by competitors. Tesla has a track record of aggressively going after former employees on grounds of stealing trade secrets.

Trade Action: Tesla shares closed at $846.64 on Friday, up 0.2%.