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CNBC: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

Selbran

Selbran

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,567
Can't dismiss the information as being false. Tesla even claims that he falsely said the damaged parts were put into vehicles when they claim they were not used. Then the article has Business Insider asking Tesla about it and they pretty much say "They weren't but if they were they would have been removed" which isn't the same as saying they never were.

Likewise Tesla also says he overstated how much scrap they're wasting and the value of it, but in the article you have them saying it's common to be wasting the large quantities of scrap they're burning through and an outside analyst concerned at the cost of it all.
 
Psychotext

Psychotext

Member
Oct 30, 2017
16,685
Wouldn't even be slightly surprised that this was actually a whistle-blower being smeared / discredited.
 
Laughing Banana

Laughing Banana

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,505
Bandung Indonesia
I mean,

There was once an employee whistleblowing the fact that Tesla only have 9 million in the bank while taking more than 1200 preorders and delivering only fewer than 50 to the customers. The employee name was not revealed by the news outlet Valleywag, but Musk decides to go detective on him by copying the word document the whistleblower uses, noticing its size, and pored over his office's printer activity logs, looking for a matched document. He found them, forcing the employee to resign...

...only for later to admit that yes, Tesla only have 9 million in the bank.

If anything, I trust the word of the employee more than Elon's, hahah.
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,249
Psychotext said:
Wouldn't even be slightly surprised that this was actually a whistle-blower being smeared / discredited.
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I'd imagine a whistle blower would report safety concerns about punctured battery cells to the proper authorities instead of leaking information to Business Insider.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that people so easily side with this guy who admitted to installing hacking software on his colleagues devices so they could take the fall for him if shit hit the fan?
How much do you have to hate Tesla / Elon Musk to side with a guy like that. What would the reactions be like if this happened at any other company?
 
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tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,400
KeRaSh said:
Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that people so easily side with this guy who admitted to installing hacking software on his colleagues devices so they could take the fall for him if shit hit the fan?
How much do you have to hate Tesla / Elon Musk to side with a guy like that. What would the reactions be like if this happened at any other company?
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Do you read any of the threads on this site about Facebook or Twitter or Google? Do you really feel that Tesla is treated more harshly than them? When that disturbed channel owner showed up at Youtube and started shooting random employees, you actually had people arguing in the thread here about whether they brought it on themselves because of policy changes. There is a lot of anger directed toward Silicon Valley on this site. Tesla actually gets off pretty light. Yet you still get people showing up in these threads and playing the victim card or insinuating that any negative posts about Tesla or Elon Musk must come from bots or astroturfers. THAT is the thing that is weird about Tesla threads. Even the ardent Apple supporters don't go that far.
 
shinra-bansho

shinra-bansho

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,964
KeRaSh said:
I'd imagine a whistle blower would report safety concerns about punctured battery cells to the proper authorities instead of leaking information to Business Insider.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that people so easily side with this guy who admitted to installing hacking software on his colleagues devices so they could take the fall for him if shit hit the fan?
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The claim of some sort of hacking admission is made by Tesla, the employee in question denies this or any admission of it in the Washington Post.
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,249
tokkun said:
Do you read any of the threads on this site about Facebook or Twitter or Google? Do you really feel that Tesla is treated more harshly than them? There is a lot of anger directed toward Silicon Valley on this site
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Might just be my anecdotal experience but it feels like Tesla / Elon Musk threads get way more personal than some other threads about Silicon Valley companies get. I'd say Apple threads come close but I don't really follow those too closely.

tokkun said:
When that disturbed channel owner showed up at Youtube and started shooting random employees, you actually had people arguing in the thread here about whether they brought it on themselves because of policy changes.
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Welp, I'm hoping they were banned...

tokkun said:
Tesla actually gets off pretty light. Yet you still get people showing up in these threads and playing the victim card or insinuating that any negative posts about Tesla or Elon Musk must come from bots or astroturfers. THAT is the thing that is weird about Tesla threads. Even the ardent Apple supporters don't go that far.
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Again, anecdotal but to me it seems to be the other way around. People arguing in favor of Tesla / Elon Musk usually get a "shill" or "fanboy" stamp no matter how reasonable their argument is.

It's probably just the vocal minorities of both camps that go at each other in these threads. I try not to get involved too much. At the end of the day we'll have to wait and see what comes out of this. Until then it's all just speculation and "he said she said".
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,400
KeRaSh said:
Might just be my anecdotal experience but it feels like Tesla / Elon Musk threads get way more personal than some other threads about Silicon Valley companies get. I'd say Apple threads come close but I don't really follow those too closely.
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Most Apple fans have come to terms with the fact that critics of Apple are just normal people who don't like their business practices, and not part of some shadowy conspiracy. Probably also helps with this site's demographic that Tim Cook isn't the one going on Twitter to proclaim himself the only true socialist.
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,249
tokkun said:
Most Apple fans have come to terms with the fact that critics of Apple are just normal people who don't like their business practices, and not part of some shadowy conspiracy. Probably also helps with this site's demographic that Tim Cook isn't the one going on Twitter to proclaim himself the only true socialist.
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Haha, that could very well be one of many reasons. :)
 
Alucrid

Alucrid

Chicken Photographer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,413
Hours after Tesla sued its former employee on charges he had stolen company secrets, and days after chief Elon Musk had called him a saboteur, the Silicon Valley automaker made a startling claim. The company had received a call from a friend of the employee, Martin Tripp, saying he would be coming to Tesla's Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada to "shoot the place up," according to a Tesla spokesman.

But Tripp, who says he became a whistleblower after seeing what he called dangerous conditions in the company's car batteries, told The Washington Post he had said no such thing. Emails exchanged that day between him and Musk, provided to The Post and confirmed by Tesla, show bitter words from both men but also Tripp saying he had "never made a threat." Tesla's claims, he said, are "absurd! Insane is a better word."

The sheriff's office in Storey County, where the Gigafactory is located, said Thursday that it had received information of a threat to security at the Gigafactory on Wednesday but determined "after several hours of investigation ... there was no credible threat." Sheriff Gerald Antinoro said that names of all involved parties will be withheld while the investigation is ongoing. Tesla said it is increasing security at the Gigafactory as a precaution.
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huh

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...osing-internal-rancor/?utm_term=.c89f41bf8354
 
Parch

Parch

Member
Nov 6, 2017
7,980
Lots of mud slinging, threats and accusations going on. Hard to determine who is telling the truth, but if there are actual safety concerns about the batteries and this employee was fired because he was going public about it, this story is not over.
 
Wallach

Wallach

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,653
Reads like one idiot having a tantrum with another. Some crafty saboteur doing elite espionage, indeed.
 
TarpitCarnivore

TarpitCarnivore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,209
FYI: the legal team Musk hired was a prosecutor for the Enron case

Some on HN are speculating there is a lot more going on here given the publicity being brought to this and the hiring of such a high profile attorney
 
Scubamonk

Scubamonk

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,409
I don't understand Musk's endgame here. From what I have seen, the stuff the whistle blower leaked didn't seem to have any huge detrimental impact on Tesla. Why not just let it go?
 
cwmartin

cwmartin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,764
Scubamonk said:
I don't understand Musk's endgame here. From what I have seen, the stuff the whistle blower leaked didn't seem to have any huge detrimental impact on Tesla. Why not just let it go?
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May I introduce you to ego? He takes everything personally, and any slight on Tesla is a personal attack on him. He does this to himself imo.
 

SRG01

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,014
Looking at the recent developments in this thread, punctured cells may be a big deal as it may trigger a NHTSA investigation.

Of course, this all depends on whether the allegations of punctured cells are indeed real. The indicated logs and Tesla's half denial make me lean toward it being real...
 
kmfdmpig

kmfdmpig

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
19,348
SRG01 said:
Looking at the recent developments in this thread, punctured cells may be a big deal as it may trigger a NHTSA investigation.

Of course, this all depends on whether the allegations of punctured cells are indeed real. The indicated logs and Tesla's half denial make me lean toward it being real...
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It's certainly an intriguing situation, but at this point it's hard to tell whether the ex-employee is a bit over-zealous in what he expects of the company and/or disgruntled or if there were legitimate issues that he tried to address and then leaked to the press. I'm curious to see how it plays out, but at this point it seems difficult to see how it will pan out.
 
Daitokuji

Daitokuji

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,602
Is this real or is he getting into conspiracy theory type stuff? The cult of tesla is already creepy enough, though they do apparently make amazing vehicles. It would be nice if they had a proper business plan to back it up though.
 

SRG01

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,014
kmfdmpig said:
It's certainly an intriguing situation, but at this point it's hard to tell whether the ex-employee is a bit over-zealous in what he expects of the company and/or disgruntled or if there were legitimate issues that he tried to address and then leaked to the press. I'm curious to see how it plays out, but at this point it seems difficult to see how it will pan out.
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The point of contention right now isn't whether or not there were punctured batteries -- IIRC, Tesla never denied the data in the logs themselves -- but rather whether they were "fixed" and reused in the assembly line.

My prediction for the near-term is that, regardless of claims from either side, NHTSA will get involved to determine whether or not these batteries were actually used. If they were, then Tesla's in for a world of hurt.
 
numble

numble

Member
Oct 25, 2017
814
KeRaSh said:
I'd imagine a whistle blower would report safety concerns about punctured battery cells to the proper authorities instead of leaking information to Business Insider.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that people so easily side with this guy who admitted to installing hacking software on his colleagues devices so they could take the fall for him if shit hit the fan?
How much do you have to hate Tesla / Elon Musk to side with a guy like that. What would the reactions be like if this happened at any other company?
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Where did he admit to installing hacking software?
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,249
Apparently a friend of Tripp called Tesla because he said he would shoot up the Gigafactory. Turned out to be an empty threat but the police is looking into it.

Source
 

SRG01

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,014
KeRaSh said:
Apparently a friend of Tripp called Tesla because he said he would shoot up the Gigafactory. Turned out to be an empty threat but the police is looking into it.

Source
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Already addressed earlier. Tripp denied it to WaPo, and the sheriff's office said there was no credible threat, but the situation is still under investigation -- which is standard procedure.
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,249
SRG01 said:
Already addressed earlier. Tripp denied it to WaPo, and the sheriff's office said there was no credible threat, but the situation is still under investigation -- which is standard procedure.
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This is America. There's always a possible threat.
 
Maxximo

Maxximo

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
636
Some of my friends made good money on TSLA, personally always seemed too much of a gamble to me to be considered an investment(was tempted to buy around 260$ in april that would have been a good trade...oh well).
 
Yuri_G

Yuri_G

Member
Oct 30, 2017
102
El Bombastico said:
Musk makes Kenneth Lay look like Steve Jobs in comparison...
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Right, this is the type of comment that is completely untrue and of zero value. If you want to make an argument on how Tesla and SpaceX are fraudulent companies based on fact it would be a different story. The truth is they are disrupting two industries and have created at least 50,000 new jobs in the US.

Please do tell how Tesla is anything like Enron.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
59,983
Musk is far from perfect, but the irrational hate he gets from some here is so bizarre.

Is this a SV general hate thing?
 
TarpitCarnivore

TarpitCarnivore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,209
entremet said:
Musk is far from perfect, but the irrational hate he gets from some here is so bizarre.

Is this a SV general hate thing?
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He gets hate, at least from me, for the way he's crafted an image of himself and making it bigger than the companies he is running. This was fine early on to help generate buzz and attention, but it's gotten to a whole new level now. It's moved beyond anything I can recall when it comes to other 'cherished' CEO's ala Jobs. BuzzFeed has a good story on how his persona has escalated to the point it is today: https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineod...-press-media?utm_term=.fvbmNQvPJe#.raxgNKxY8O
 
low-G

low-G

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,144
entremet said:
Musk is far from perfect, but the irrational hate he gets from some here is so bizarre.

Is this a SV general hate thing?
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He's massively arrogant.

To people who don't know better, this is impressive. They think he must be someone to idolize.

To people who see past his hollow boasting, this is unimpressive. We see that he is clearly much, much less impressive than even the common airs about him.

The above statement is generally true for all arrogant people.
 
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