Martin Tripp is a former Tesla worker. He has been embroiled in a bitter legal battle with CEO Elon Musk for nearly two years due to leaking confidential information to a reporter. After admitting to the charges, Tripp faces a fine of $400,000 to pay his former employer.
The settlement will bring an end to one of the more sordid stories at Tesla. Martin Tripp, a former process technician, leaked information about Tesla wasting a “jaw-dropping” amount of raw material as the company ramped up production of the Model 3 sedan.
However, Musk accused Tripp of sabotage. He personally ordered investigators to hack Tripp’s phone and read his messages. The company even misled local police about a potential mass shooting by Tripp at the company’s Nevada factory.
Tesla filed the lawsuit in 2018 though, proclaiming that Martin Tripp hacked the electric car company’s system and then transferred gigabytes of data to third parties. After a long legal battle, opposing parties reached an agreement, with Tripp coming out on the losing side. As part of the agreement, he admitted to violating laws related to trade secrets, along with computer crimes.
Furthermore, Martin Tripp agreed to pay $25,000 to the company for continuing to reveal information about Tesla, despite a judge ordering him to stop. Instead of quitting, Tripp had been publishing a large number of videos and documents online, among them many under a confidentiality order in the case.
Tripp fired his lawyers in August and set about representing himself in the case. It also came to light that The Funicular Fund, a Tesla short seller, was financing Tripp’s legal defense.
Tesla said Martin Tripp planned to shoot people at the company’s Nevada factory
Earlier in 2020, a judge dismissed Martin Tripp’s defamation case against Tesla. The former employee accused the company of spreading false rumors about him.
After that, Martin Tripp filed for whistleblower status with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, Musk informed a reporter at The Guardian that a tipster had contacted Tesla. They said that Tripp might come back and shoot people at the Nevada Gigafactory. Even though the local sheriff determined the threat was not real, Tesla still issued a press release about it.
