The saga involving Tesla and a former employee named Martin Tripp shows no signs of slowing down. Just a few weeks ago, you may recall that Tesla sued Tripp for allegedly stealing company data and trying to sabotage the company’s production line. Tripp has since returned the favor, with the Washington Post reporting that Tripp a few days ago filed a complaint with the SEC alleging that the automaker has been lying to investors and churning out cars that are unfit for the road.
Amidst a sea of allegations, Tripp claims that Tesla implemented a number of questionable tactics in order to boost Model 3 production, including shipping batteries with puncture holes that make the Model 3 a fundamentally unsafe car to drive. What’s more, Tripp claims that Tesla has lied about the cumulative number of Model 3 vehicles it sells every quarter.
While Tripp has been positioning himself as a noble whistle-blower of sorts, Tesla naturally takes an opposing view and essentially labeled Tripp a saboteur. In an email sent to employees a few weeks back, Musk detailed some of Tripp’s alleged behavior:
I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.
Tripp began working at Tesla this past October, with the automaker claiming that Tripp became intent on damaging Tesla’s reputation after he was passed up for a promotion.
