Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by beepthroughbop 2141 days ago
Tesla had (has?) many defects in their batteries and they were putting dangerous units into production cars when they should have been thrown away. They were also hiding the defects in the financial accounting by marking them as test units instead of scrap.

Tripp tried to bring the issue to management's attention. Musk and management ignored him. Tripp then went to the press. Musk then fired him, put him under 24/7 surveillance, tapped his cell phone using a stinger, and seemingly[1] ordered someone to "SWAT" him by calling in a fake threat that Tripp was armed and coming to Tesla to "shoot up the place". Tripp is now suing.

[1] Hard to believe that it wasn't done a Musk's direction given that similar things have happened to other whisteblowers (child services was called on another [I believe she is now suing], Musk personally called the boss of at least one other, Musk tried to get another external whistleblower arrested by falsely claiming vehicular assault [and also tried to get him expelled], that person is now suing).
1 comments
xedeon 2141 days ago
https://www.scribd.com/document/471770054/TES-TRIPP-0028348-...
link
beepthroughbop 2141 days ago
What am I supposed to take away? Some other former employee (who is broke, was fired and is trying to get his job back at Tesla) claims the problems were not that bad (Does he have expertise in batteries?). He makes a bunch of other unfounded allegations about Tripp claiming about getting paid (Musk in his deposition testified that there was no actual evidence for that allegation). The entire testimony reads like incoherent rambling.
link
xedeon 2141 days ago
> unfounded allegations about Tripp claiming about getting paid

This has already been substantiated on the court documents.

https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1220154057895088133?...

>(Musk in his deposition testified that there was no actual evidence for that allegation).

Do you have a link for this claim? I'm curious to read it.

link
beepthroughbop 2141 days ago
Page 83 and 84 of the Musk deposition for Lopez.

Musk says that his private security told him that Tripp's colleague (who was living in his car begging for his job back) told him about a payment but the private security testified their investigation found no evidence. Musk himself doesn't explicitly testify that there was no evidence in that passage. I confused that section with his testimony about the lack of evidence linking Tripp to shortsellers on page 96.

So the entire claim about payment rests on the testimony of a QA technician who got fired for cause from Tesla, was living in his car and begging Tesla for his job back, a claim that Musk's own private investigator testified they could find no evidence for.

link
xedeon 2141 days ago
A link to your claims would be great. Otherwise, it's hard to take it seriously.
link
gonehome 2141 days ago
This is 102 pages, what's the core argument?

It'd be better if you actually explained your position or made your point in addition to just commenting links.

link
xedeon 2141 days ago
It's summarized here: https://twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1220153971668549637

I don't like to speculate. I would rather others form their own opinion.

link