To hear Elon Musk tell it, the worst thing an employee at his electric-car company could do is sabotage Tesla’s relentless march toward a new golden age of innovation. He said as much in a memo to employees on Sunday, which doubled as a veritable how dare you? to an alleged saboteur within Tesla’s ranks. A Tesla employee, he wrote, had been caught conducting “damaging sabotage to our operations,” allegedly making “direct code changes” to Tesla’s manufacturing system and sending “large amounts of highly sensitive data to unknown third parties.” On Wednesday, Tesla filed a lawsuit against former process engineer Martin Tripp, alleging that Tripp had illegally exported gigabytes of confidential data, including “dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla’s manufacturing systems,” and made false statements about Tesla to the media; in short, a straightforward case of an employee undermining his boss.
But new allegations from Tripp have added an unexpected wrinkle to Musk’s story. The engineer, who told The Washington Post that he “looked up to Elon . . . looked up to Tesla” before moving his family to Nevada to work at Tesla’s Gigafactory battery plant, claims to be a whistleblower. He didn’t meddle with Tesla’s internal systems, he said, and spoke out only because he saw “some really scary things” at Tesla, including “dangerously punctured batteries” installed in Tesla vehicles.
Before he started at the company in October, Tripp idolized Tesla. “I was always drooling about the Teslas and wanting to buy one,” he told the Post, saying he saw the company as a “golden opportunity.” “I was living the mission: to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.” Once he started at the company, however, his views changed. Tripp confirmed to the Post that he leaked information to Business Insider for a story earlier this month about waste at Tesla—according to internal documents, as much as 40 percent of the raw materials that go into Tesla’s driving units and batteries are reworked or scrapped before being assembled into Model 3 vehicles. The result is that, for every functioning Tesla part, thousands of pieces of “nonconforming material” are also created. Per internal estimates reviewed by Business Insider, Tesla has spent almost $150 million on scrap material so far this year. (The company disputed the number.)
Tripp also claimed that hundreds of Model 3 vehicles were built with punctured batteries—a fact he said compelled him to speak out. (Tesla told the Post it wouldn’t ship cars with safety concerns). He didn’t want to hurt the company, he said, but was uncomfortable with Tesla’s unsustainable practices. “I wanted to leave the world better for my son,” he said. “And I felt I was doing everything but that.” He said he’s now seeking official protections as a whistleblower, and an attorney. “I don’t have the patience for coding,” he said, denying claims that he hacked into Tesla’s computers. And though Tesla lawyers had said he was disgruntled about not receiving a promotion, Tripp said that wasn’t the case. “That’s their generic excuse,” he said. “I could literally care less.”
Musk, it appears, took the falling-out extremely personally—“You’re a horrible human being,” he wrote in an e-mail to Tripp, according to the Post. (Tripp’s reply: “Putting cars on the road with safety issues is being a horrible human being!”) Tesla told the Post that Tripp was not a whistleblower, but instead had made exaggerated and false claims in an attempt to hurt the company. Tesla lawyers have sought a court order for Tripp’s electronic communications, and have claimed Tripp was “disruptive and combative” with colleagues. In its lawsuit, Tesla claims to have suffered “cruel and unjust hardship” thanks to Tripp, including “lost business, lost profits, and damage to its goodwill.” The company is seeking an unknown amount in damages, which will be decided at trial.
The pall of bad publicity can only hurt Tesla as it races to produce its Model 3’s—it’s already missed several production deadlines, causing investors to question whether the company can keep itself afloat without another cash infusion. The pressure seems to be getting to Musk, who in recent weeks has done things like heckle analysts during an earnings call, sending Tesla’s stock plunging; and rant about biased reporters, whom he complained are biased against Tesla for its lack of advertising (oil and gas companies, he claimed, spend ad money with ready hands). Now, Musk seems convinced there are additional saboteurs to be found out. “There is more, but the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals,” he tweeted this week. “With 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues. That’s still ~40 people.”
After this article was published, a spokesperson for Tesla told me that they had received a call suggesting that Tripp had made a threat regarding Tesla's Gigafactory, and that they had notified the police. The sheriff’s office in Storey County, where Tesla’s Gigafactory is located, confirmed that it received a threat on Wednesday though it determined “there was no credible threat” after an investigation. Tripp didn’t respond to a request for comment, but told the Post that Tesla’s claims were “absurd! Insane is a better word.”
This article has been updated.
