Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple employee, has been sentenced to prison for his involvement in theft related to the company’s unmanned autonomous car project. Zhang was caught at San Jose International Airport in 2018 while traveling to China and was interrogated for espionage allegations. Despite initially denying all accusations, Zhang eventually confessed to his crime in 2022.

He is not the first

Zhang is not the first former Apple employee involved in theft. Some former employees have previously been in the spotlight for misusing company information for malicious purposes. Zhang worked as a hardware engineer at Apple and was part of the Project Titan autonomous car project.

An investigation by Apple revealed that Zhang transferred confidential project designs to his wife’s computer and obtained a copy of the project’s user manual. Zhang resigned from Apple and joined Chinese autonomous car company XPeng Motors, raising suspicions and triggering an investigation.

Zhang has been sentenced to prison for six months and fined $146,984. While the initial lawsuit against him carried a potential 10-year sentence, Zhang’s sentence has been seen as relatively lenient. The increasing prevalence of such cases has prompted Silicon Valley companies to demand heavier penalties to deter theft.

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