Video: Report suggests car system failures in deadly Tesla Model X crash.
Tesla is suing a former technician who allegedly transferred gigabytes of trade secrets to outsiders.
In a suit[1] filed on Wednesday in Nevada, Tesla alleges that former Tesla process technician Martin Tripp has admitted to "writing software that hacked Tesla's manufacturing operating system" and leaking several gigabytes of Tesla data to outsiders, including "dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla's manufacturing systems".
Tesla also alleges Tripp wrote code that would periodically send Tesla data to third parties and would continue doing so even after he left the company.
The exfiltration software was installed on three computer systems of other employees, which Tesla says was designed to falsely implicate them.
Musk on Monday told staff in a email[2] obtained by CNBC that a disgruntled employee had conducted "quite extensive and damaging sabotage" by maliciously tampering with Tesla's manufacturing operating system and exporting large amounts of sensitive data to unknown third-parties. Musk speculated the outsiders could be Wall Street short-sellers, auto rivals, or oil companies.
According to CNBC[3], Tripp is the employee Musk referred to in the email.
Tripp, who had worked at Tesla's lithium battery Gigafactoy since October 2017, told CNN[4] he didn't hack any system and was "being singled out for being a whistleblower".
"The data I was collecting was so severe, I had to go to the media," he told CNN[5]. He says he was trying to warn investors and the public and had discovered 1,100 damaged battery modules that were installed on Model 3 cars already on the road.
Tripp also claims there