Blog Tesla Sues Former Employee for Hacking Trade Secrets

Tesla has filed a lawsuit against a former employee alleging he “unlawfully hacked the company’s confidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties.”

The company is seeking $1 million from the former employee, Martin Tripp, who worked as a process technician.

According to the petition, Tesla says Tripp admitted to writing software to hack the company’s manufacturing operating system and transferring “several gigabytes” of data, including photos and videos, to outside entities. Tesla says Tripp also made false claims to the media about the information he stole.

“Tripp claimed that punctured battery cells had been used in certain Model 3 vehicles even though no punctured cells were ever used in vehicles, batteries or otherwise,” the petition says. “Tripp also vastly exaggerated the true amount and value of ‘scrap’ material that Tesla generated during the manufacturing process, and falsely claimed that Tesla was delayed in bringing new manufacturing equipment online.”

Tesla says Tripp’s actions were retaliation for being assigned a different role at the company.

According to the lawsuit, Tesla has only begun to understand the full scope of Tripp’s illegal activity.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1009484066159144962

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday about the lawsuit. “There is more, but the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals,” he wrote.

The full petition is available here.

 

[bkp_duke]

This guy should be sued into oblivion. No mercy.

 

[Jeff Hudson]

Assuming Martin Tripp does not settle with Tesla and Tesla wins their lawsuit does anyone on teslamotorsclub know and would they mind explaining how wage garnishment works in California.

 

[mpt]

Nevada law probably applies here.

All the people at Tesla who've put in ridiculous hours and given up much of their life to see them succeed, what a kick in the...

 

[Jeff Hudson]

Oh, I must not have been paying as much attention to this news as I thought. I assumed Tripp was located at the Tesla manufacturing facility in Fremont, California.

 

[ThosEM]

Umm, how can open/public patents be "hacked"? Perhaps there are other trade secrets?

 

[bkp_duke]

Umm, how can open/public patents be "hacked"? Perhaps there are other trade secrets?

Just because the general patents for some designs are available does NOT mean that processes and software are provided under those patents. There is a GIGANTIC false assumption that everything Tesla is open-source. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their manufacturing processes, for example, are not in the public domain and would fall under protection here.

This guy is TOAST. He's already admitted what he did. His only PRAYER is that he can point Tesla to a much larger fish that they can get evidence to go after.

I would LOVE to see some organization like the UAW behind this. It would CRUSH their chances of ever getting Tesla labor under a union agreement.

 

[BenPrice]

Dude will be fine

Tesla will offer $1 in damages for the 3rd parties/motivation.

No “process tech” has any money unless he/she’s a trust fund baby.

Offer $1 in damages for motivation = biggest story of the year (GL BUSINESS INSIDER)

 

[Zythryn]

Wow, looks like this guy (Martin Tripp) may have been the ‘inside source’ for Business Insider.
Last bulletpoint here, Martin Tripp: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

They also link to the complaint filed with the court.

 

[jtdiddy]

Yea, as a patent attorney, i handle alot of these types of cases. Always surprises me when employees do this at large companies and not expect huge ramifications. Mr. Tripp is in hot water. He's looking at both monetary damages and potential jail time.

 

[BluestarE3]

Wow, looks like this guy (Martin Tripp) may have been the ‘inside source’ for Business Insider.
Last bulletpoint here, Martin Tripp: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

They also link to the complaint filed with the court.

I wonder if he sabotaged the robots to cause them to puncture the battery cells?

 

[X Fan]

7 months on the job & looking for promotion already.

Seems to me unrealistic expectations.....

 

[MP3Mike]

Apparently CNBC has information that doesn't appear to have been made public about the sabotage: Tesla's alleged rogue employee is exactly what Congress is worried about with self-driving cars

But the idea that a malicious insider could successfully tamper with software used in the vehicles' battery testing process is more fodder for worst-case scenarios raised by lawmakers over self-driving cars.

 

[mongo]

I wonder if he sabotaged the robots to cause them to puncture the battery cells?

There were no punctured cells, that was part of what he, allegedly, made up.
EDIT: properly corrected by @MP3Mike that this does not say there were no punctuated cells. Thank you!
Edit2: and @BluestarE3 , my bad!

From the filing

Tripp also made false claims a bout the information he stole from Tesla. Tripp claimed that punctured battery cells had been used in some Model 3 customer vehicles even though the evidence clearly demonstrates that no punctured cells were ever used. Tripp also used the Tesla data that he exported to grossly overstate the true amount and value of “scrap” material that Tesla generated during the manufacturing process, and he falsely claimed that Tesla was delayed in bringing new manufacturing equipment online at the Gigafactory.

 

[MP3Mike]

There were no punctured cells, that was part of what he, allegedly, made up.

Tesla doesn't say that there were no punctured cells, they just say that no punctured cells were used. There is a difference there. And they state that he exaggerated the waste. So it is possible that he caused the damage, and then leaked it.

 

[BluestarE3]

There were no punctured cells, that was part of what he, allegedly, made up.
From the filing

The way I interpreted that was that punctured cells were not used in the production of Model 3s (as claimed by Tripp), not necessarily that there were no punctured cells.

 

[Zythryn]

I really hope this guy was also shorting the stock, prior to these bad acts. Then he will have the FTC to deal with as well.

 

[TexasEV]

I really hope this guy was also shorting the stock, prior to these bad acts. Then he will have the FTC to deal with as well.

I think you mean SEC.

 

[BenPrice]

Gonna be a looooong weeek for Mr. Tripp.

Does he destroy evidence and take the full brunt?

Or save evidence and have Tesla minimize pain...

Either way = rofl

Can’t bargain if you can’t bargain.

Somebody about to get exposed af.

 

[Zythryn]

I think you mean SEC.

Doh! Of course. I must need more caffeine