A lawsuit filed by an Andover woman in Essex Superior Monday accuses Tesla Inc. of stealing intellectual property from her and five of her former classmates at Babson College in Wellesley.
Mercedes Owolabi’s complaint accuses the electric carmaker owned by Elon Musk of hacking into her Google Drive account and accessing documents related to an “extensive student-initiated research project and strategy development” she led and worked on with the other students, who were not named in the complaint.
A spokesperson for Austin, TX-based Tesla and Owolabi, who is representing herself, were not immediately available for comment. Andover News will update this story if we hear back from them.
Owolabi said in the lawsuit she discovered the documents related to the research project had been accessed earlier this month, leading her to believe they have been accessed by Tesla. The complaint does not contain any evidence supporting her suspicion.
Owolabi is seeking a massive payoff for her and the other students, including board seats, damages, a “modest donation” to nonprofits, and 50 percent of equity in the company that, as of Tuesday, had a market cap of $836 billion.
The lawsuit says Owolabi contacted a Babson alum working at Tesla in 2012 and 2013 and discussed sharing the findings with Tesla. She did not share the students’ report with the Tesla employee, who was not identified.
“The man suddenly ‘ghosted’ her,” the complaint said. “Since then…she has had countless issues with hacking, and invasion of privacy regarding several if not all of her email addresses, cloud databases, and social media accounts.”
Photo: Tesla Inc.