Ex-Apple employee accused of stealing trade secrets is exec at Baidu self-driving car joint venture

Published

3 years ago

May 16, 2023

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Visitors look at a Jidu Robo-01 electric SUV during the 20th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition at Canton Fair Complex on Dec. 30, 2022 in Guangzhou, China.

Zou Wei | Visual China Group | Getty Images

On Tuesday, the U.S. government accused a former Apple employee, Weibao Wang, of stealing trade secrets from the company’s self-driving car division, including the entirety of Apple’s “autonomous” source code.

The U.S. government did not identify in the charging documents who Wang works for now, but according to Reuters and several company profiles, Wang is an executive at Jidu, an electric vehicle joint venture between Chinese internet company Baidu and Chinese car maker Geely.

The U.S. government is concerned that Beijing is using various tactics to steal proprietary information from American companies, including “corrupting insiders.” Tuesday’s announcement was part of a Department of Justice task force designed to “counter efforts by hostile nation-states to illicitly acquire sensitive U.S technology.”

Federal prosecutors have accused Wang of agreeing to work for a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese automaker months before he left Apple in 2018, and of stealing privileged information dealing with Apple’s autonomous systems development, allegedly to give to an unnamed Chinese company.

According to a since-deleted LinkedIn profile that appeared in a Chinese-language interview, after Wang left Apple he began working at a health care artificial intelligence firm called Singularity.AI, which has offices in California and China. Following that, he worked as chief technology officer at Neolix, a Chinese self-driving car company. In 2021, Wang joined Jidu to run the company’s intelligent-driving efforts.

In June 2018, law enforcement officials searched Wang’s apartment on Apple’s suspicions that he had taken internal company files. Wang purchased a ticket and flew to China the same day, according to Tuesday’s filing. The charges suggest Wang can no longer travel to the U.S. without risking arrest.

Wang is the third former Apple employee from China to be accused of stealing trade secrets from Apple’s self-driving car division. Xiaolang Zhang, who worked at Apple around the same time as Wang, pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from Apple in August. And ex-Apple employee Jizhong Chen is also facing charges, but a trial date for his case has yet to be set.

Neither Zhang nor Chen were able to leave the country before they were arrested separately in 2018 and 2019, and Apple lawyers said in 2019 they were worried that they would flee to China.

Apple has reportedly been working on a self-driving car since at least 2015, although it has never discussed its goals or plans publicly and no car has been announced. The most public sign of Apple’s efforts is a fleet of cars with sensors for gathering data, which can be spotted driving around some California neighborhoods.

In February, Jidu confirmed plans to deliver its first car this year, and that it will be using ChatGPT-like technology in its vehicles.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment. An Apple representative declined to comment. Baidu and the FBI’s San Francisco field office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Technology

Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

Published

5 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025.

Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla has obtained a permit to operate a ride-hailing service in Arizona, the state’s department of transportation said.

The electric vehicle company applied for a “transportation network company” permit on Nov. 13, and was approved on Monday, ADOT said in an emailed statement. Additional permits will be required before Tesla can operate a robotaxi service in Arizona.

In July, Tesla applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations in Phoenix, with and without human safety drivers on board. A month earlier, Tesla started a robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, with safety valets and remote operators. Tesla also operates a more traditional car service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla plans to take human safety drivers out of its cars in Austin before the end of this year. The company is aiming to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix and several other U.S. cities before the end of 2026.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, Tesla cars equipped with automated driving systems were involved in seven reported collisions following the launch of the company’s pilot in Texas.

Competitors including Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China are way ahead in the nascent robotaxi ride-hailing market. In the Phoenix area, Waymo operates a sizable commercial business, with at least 400 autonomous vehicles, the company previously told CNBC. In May, Waymo said it had surpassed 10 million driverless trips served to riders across the U.S.

Baidu said in an earnings update on Tuesday that its Apollo Go service “provided 3.1 million fully driverless operational rides in the third quarter of 2025,” representing year-over-year growth of 212%.

Musk has been promising that Tesla will “solve” autonomy for years without reaching its goals. The world’s richest person has continued with the lofty pronouncements.

At the company’s 2025 shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said the “killer app” for self-driving technology is when people can “text and drive,” or “sleep and drive.”

“Before we allow the car to be driven without paying attention, we need to make sure it’s very safe,” Musk said. “We’re on the cusp of that. I know I’ve said that a few times. We really are at this point.”

WATCH: Baidu to ramp up global exports as robotaxi service grows in China

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CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

Published

8 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

The Anthropic website on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Money keeps flowing into artificial intelligence companies but out of AI stocks.

In what looks like — once again — a scenario of the left hand scratching the right, Microsoft and Nvidia will be investing a combined $15 billion into Anthropic, while the OpenAI competitor has committed to buying compute power from its two newest stakeholders. At this point, it seems as if a big proportion of AI news can be summarized as: “Company X invests in Company Y, and Company Y will buy things from Company X.”

Okay, that’s unfair. There are a lot of developments in the AI world that are not about investments but, well, development. Google unveiled the third version of Gemini, its AI model, which Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, said “will be “trading cliché and flattery for genuine insight.” (But I still want an AI chatbot to compliment me on my curiosity when I ask how to cut a pear, so I’m not sure if that’s a pro for me.)

Investors, however, still appear skeptical about AI. Major names such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft tumbled Tuesday stateside, giving the S&P 500 its fourth straight session in the red — the longest decline since August.

And if Nvidia — “the top company within the top industry within the top sector,” as CFRA’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall puts it — fails to satisfy investors’ expectations when it reports earnings Wednesday, we might be seeing the S&P 500’s slide extend.

What you need to know today

The S&P 500 falls for a fourth consecutive day. Other major indexes also moved lower Tuesday stateside, while bitcoin prices dropped below $90,000 before recovering. Europe’s regional Stoxx 600 sank 1.72% and touched its lowest level in a month.

Anthropic signs deal with Microsoft and Nvidia. Microsoft announced Tuesday it will invest up to $5 billion in the startup, while Nvidia will put in up to $10 billion. That puts Anthropic’s valuation around $350 billion, according to a source.

Google announces its latest AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday it will require “less prompting” for desired answers. The update comes eight months after Google introduced Gemini 2.5, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

U.S. Senators urge investigation into Trump-linked crypto firm. World Liberty Finance, heavily owned and run by the Trump family, sold tokens to a North Korean hacking organization, an Iranian crypto exchange and others, according to a corporate watchdog.

[PRO] Potentially resilient stocks amid AI slump. There are some global stocks and non-equity assets that could weather the turbulence in U.S. tech names happening recently, strategists told CNBC.

And finally…

Oleksii Liskonih | Istock | Getty Images

Diplomatic spat between Tokyo and Beijing threatens Japan’s already fragile economy

Miffed over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments related to Taiwan, China on Friday advised its citizens against travelling to the country. Japanese tourism-exposed stocks fell in the aftermath of that warning, while experts caution the impact could be more severe over a longer duration.

Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said tensions between the two Asian powers could result in a 1.79 trillion yen drop in Japan’s GDP over the course of one year — a 0.29% decline in the country’s GDP.

— Lim Hui Jie