https://qz.com/1325537/a-chinese-driverless-startups-new-hire-has-been-charged-with-stealing-secrets-from-apple/

In the race to put self-driving cars on the road, China and the US are neck and neck. Companies in both countries want to guard the technologies they’re developing, but that can be a challenge as rivals try to poach key engineers, often the gatekeepers of intellectual property.

Apple is well aware of the problem. This week US prosecutors charged Zhang Xiaolang, a former hardware engineer at the tech giant, with stealing trade secrets from the firm’s autonomous driving project. According to a criminal complaint filed to a federal court in California on Monday (July 9), Zhang is accused of downloading files containing Apple’s proprietary information earlier this year. Shortly after he resigned, he took a post in May with Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer Xiaopeng Motors, working in its offices in Mountain View, California.