ScaleAI, in which Mark Zuckerberg invested $14.3 billion, sues former employee Eugene Ling for stealing data; read his open post on lawsuit: I’m really sorry to my ...

Eugene Ling

, a former sales employee at Scale AI, has issued a public apology to his current team and employer,

Mercor

, after a report emerged that his ex-company is suing them. The lawsuit, filed two months after Scale AI secured a massive $14.3 billion investment from Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, accuses Ling of stealing confidential documents containing customer strategies and other proprietary information.“Just heard I’m getting sued by Scale. Last month, I left Scale to work at Mercor. I know this was frustrating for my old team, and I feel bad about that,” Ling said in a post.Ling also denies any “nefarious intent.” He stated that after leaving Scale, he asked his former employer if he could delete files from his personal drive, but was instructed not to.“When Scale reached out about some files I had in my personal drive, I asked if I could just delete them. But Scale asked that I not do anything with them, so I’m still waiting for guidance on how to resolve this. I’ve never used any of them in this role. It sounds like Scale wants to sue me and that’s up to them,” he said.

“I’m really sorry to my new team at Mercor for having to deal with this,” he added.

Why ScaleAI is suing Eugene Ling

Ling’s post came after a report by TechCrunch said that Scale AI’s lawsuit alleges that Ling "stole more than 100 confidential documents concerning Scale’s customer strategies and other proprietary information" and attempted to poach one of Scale’s largest clients for Mercor.Surya Midha, co-founder of Mercor, told the publication that Ling may have had possession of the documents but denied that his company had used any of the data. “We have no interest in any of Scale’s trade secrets and in fact are intentionally running our business in a different way,” Midha said. He also revealed that Mercor had reached out to Scale AI days before the lawsuit was filed, offering to have Ling destroy the files.Scale AI's lawsuit claims that the stolen documents contained data that would have allowed Mercor to serve several of its most important clients, including a major customer, referred to in the suit as "Customer A." Scale alleges that winning this client away would be “worth millions of dollars to Mercor.” The legal action comes just weeks after Meta's significant investment in Scale AI. Zuckerberg’s company now holds 49% of Scale AI and also hired its CEO Alexandr Wang as well as some other employees as part of the deal. Wang is now chief AI officer of Meta.