Yahoo Finance Inside Saboteur Reportedly Nabbed at Tesla
As if Tesla didn’t have enough trouble getting up to speed with production of the Model 3, an internal saboteur reportedly has screwed around with the company’s manufacturing program and exported large amounts of sensitive company data to unknown third parties. That is according to an email obtained by CNBC that company CEO Elon Musk sent to employees Sunday night.
In the letter, Musk said the “extensive and damaging sabotage” included direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames, in addition to sharing top-secret data. It sounds as if the culprit has been caught. “The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad,” Musk wrote. The rogue employee was apparently upset because he didn’t get a promotion. “In light of these actions,” Musk says, “not promoting him was definitely the right move.”
Musk said the company is still trying to figure out if the disgruntled employee acted alone or was working in concert with others at Tesla or with any outside people or groups. Musk said there is “a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die,” including Wall Street short sellers, oil and gas companies, and traditional automakers. “If they’re willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they’re willing to cheat in other ways?” Musk wondered aloud to his employees. He urged them to be vigilant and to report anything suspicious.
It’s not clear what the saboteur’s position is or was at the company and whether he’ll face criminal charges. The company declined to comment. There was also reportedly a fire at the company’s Fremont, California, plant Sunday night that halted production for several hours.
Tesla has had an especially bumpy ride as of late, as it’s in the throes of trying to transition from a splashy but troubled upstart to a legitimate automaker. In addition to a regulatory investigation into its Autopilot semi-automated driving system and Musk’s clashes with Wall Street, the company has been torching cash and has yet to report a profitable year in its 15-year existence.
To that end, Musk recently announced that 9 percent of the company’s workforce will be laid off as part of a restructuring as Tesla aims to finally land in the black during the second half of this year. Musk has said that most of those to be cut are salaried employees and not involved in production of the Model 3, which makes sense, given that the company’s primary goal is to produce as many of the electric cars as it can in an effort to fill some 450,000 reservations.
Tesla has repeatedly missed production goals for the Model 3, but Musk reiterated in his Sunday letter to employees that the company is ramping up production to 5000 cars per week in the next few weeks. “This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us,” he said. Although in this case, it was an inside force.
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