Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer who pled guilty to stealing Project Titan trade secrets has been sentenced. Zhang has been sentenced to 120 days of imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release. Zhang will also pay restitution of $146,984.00. Prosecutors had asked the judge for a one-year prison sentence.
Zhang was hired by Apple in December 2015 to work on Apple’s autonomous vehicle team, Project Titan.
Zhang was a member of the Compute Team, designing and testing circuit boards to analyze sensor data, Zhang had access to Apple’s secure and confidential internal databases.
Zhang left Apple for Chinese startup XMotors in April 2018. Shortly after, Apple discovered that Zhang had stolen Apple Car development data and hardware.
In July 2018, Zhang was charged with the theft of trade secrets by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was arrested when he attempted to leave the country. While Zhang had initially pleaded not guilty, he eventually took a plea bargain.
