A former Apple engineer, who stole the company’s self-driving car technology, has been sentenced to prison
Engineer Xiaolang Zhang, who worked on the Project Titan, took a paternity leave to China in 2018, but at the end of his leave, he informed his Apple supervisors that he would not be returning.
After relocating to China, Zhang joined Chinese startup XMotors, which develops autonomous cars, which raised Apple’s concern and the company initiated an investigation.
It turned out that Zhang had stolen many files from Apple, including a 25-page document with engineering diagrams of the self-driving car’s circuit board being developed under Project Titan.
This week, Zhang was officially sentenced: 120 days in prison and 3 years on probation following his release. Zhang will also pay compensation of $146,984 (~13.4 million rubles).
