Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 19 2018, @09:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the corporate-espionage dept.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused a Tesla employee of "quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations," according to an email obtained by CNBC. In the all-hands email to Tesla staff, Musk wrote that the employee had made "direct code changes" to the company's production systems, as well as exporting "large amounts" of Tesla's data to unknown third parties.

According to Musk's email, the unnamed employee claimed he had become disgruntled after failing to receive a promotion. However, the Tesla CEO also suggested the alleged saboteur could have been working with short sellers, oil and gas companies—whom he described as "sometimes not super nice"—or "the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors." Of this last group, Musk reminded his employees that, since the traditional OEMs have been known to cheat emissions tests, "maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways."

[...] Tesla has faced plenty of criticism about its ongoing troubles in ramping up Model 3 production. But that may have been unwarranted if those problems were due to sabotage. We reached out to Tesla regarding CNBC's story, but the company declined to comment at this time.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 19 2018, @09:54PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday June 19 2018, @09:54PM (#695315) Journal

    The source is still the Musk email, so grain of salt. Let's see the employee fess up in an apology video, or get prosecuted for it.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 21 2018, @01:58AM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 21 2018, @01:58AM (#695933) Journal

    Ok, Employee fessed up, and is being sued in court:

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/tesla-sues-employee-alleged-to-have-stolen-gigabytes-of-data/ [arstechnica.com]

    Tesla has only begun to understand the full scope of Tripp’s illegal activity, but he has thus far admitted to writing software that hacked Tesla’s manufacturing operating system ("MOS") and to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities. This includes dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla’s manufacturing systems.

    Beyond the misconduct to which Tripp admitted, he also wrote computer code to periodically export Tesla’s data off its network and into the hands of third parties. His hacking software was operating on three separate computer systems of other individuals at Tesla so that the data would be exported even after he left the company and so that those individuals would be falsely implicated as guilty parties.

    What's your next Musk Doubt...?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.