Former Tesla Employee Claims Being a Whistleblower; Tesla Sues

A Tesla employee that has been sued by the automaker has denied the accusations of tampering with internal systems, claiming that he was a whistleblower that spoke up after witnessing “some scary things” inside the company that included perilously punctured batteries already installed in cars.

Tesla sued Martin Tripp, a former Tesla technician at the car maker’s Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada, and slapped allegations that the former employee hacked into the company’s computer systems, stealing the company’s secrets in the process.

This move shed some light on Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk‘s suggestion that it was the work of a secretive internal saboteur.

According to Tesla lawyers, Tripp wrote a kind of software that helped an elaborate theft of confidential photos and video of Tesla’s manufacturing systems. The company’s lawyer stated that Tripp worked for Tesla from October to last week, when the company decided to confront Tripp with evidence.

The attorneys also wrote that Tripp handed journalists and reporters fake information about the company. This includes claims that defective batteries have been used in Tesla’s Model 3 sedans, but the company didn’t issue comments.

When Tripp issued some statements in an interview, he confirmed that he indeed gave some information to a news website.

However, he added that he gave those information away because he felt alarmed with what he has discovered when he was still a Tesla employee. Meanwhile, Tesla representatives have stated that would not ship cars that have safety issues.

Tripp denied the allegations of hacking into the company’s computer systems.

“I don’t have the patience for coding,” Tripp said, adding that he wasn’t “disgruntled” over a promotion, contrary to what Tesla representatives claimed. “That’s their generic excuse. I could literally care less.”

Tripp also said that he was seeking for attorneys and official whistleblower protections.

On the other hand, the company refuted Tripp’s comments as a whistleblower, saying that it has never used punctured batteries in any Model 3 vehicles.

The lawsuit is another hit for the Silicon Valley giant that is already pressured by production deadlines and internal suspicions by Musk himself about a corporate conspiracy. Just last week, Tesla said that it would cut 9 percent of its workforce. Meanwhile, the business is nearing a critical deadline that will prove the automaker can reach its elusive goal of building 5,000 Model 3s per week.

On Sunday, Musk said in an email sent to all employees that an employee was being accused of sabotage and was complaining about not getting promoted. Musk also added that “there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye.”

Musk encouraged the worker to be “extremely vigilant.”

“There is a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die,” Musk wrote.

Musk then tweeted on Wednesday in a response to a question of Tripp was the employee he was pertaining to. He wrote, “There is more, but the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals. With 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues. That’s still ~40 people.”

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