Martin Tripp says he fears for his personal safety after claims he intended to "shoot the place up."...
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[post_ads]Martin Tripp, the embattled former Tesla employee accused of trying to sabotage the company, has filed a countersuit, seeking at least $1 million in damages after he said the company and CEO Elon Musk smeared him in the media.
Tripp's lawsuit in federal court in Reno, Nev., is the latest
in a series of public accusations and legal actions involving the former
process engineering technician and Tesla. After Musk in June accused Tripp of stealing trade secrets and hacking Tesla's manufacturing operating system, Tesla sued Tripp in federal court in Nevada. Tripp later filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC alleging Tesla was misleading investors about production numbers, was installing unsafe, damaged batteries into Model 3s and was engaging in wasteful production practices inconsistent with its mission to lead on environmental sustainability.
In his newest filing, Tripp and his lawyer are seeking to dismiss
Tesla's original suit. They reject claims that he hacked into Tesla
systems and that he registered his concerns because he didn't receive a
promotion, as Musk claimed. The countersuit also cites a Tesla
spokesperson's claim that the company had received a call from a friend
of Tripp saying that Tripp would come to the Gigafactory to "shoot the
place up." Police later investigated and said there was no threat. It
said Tripp and his wife and young child were forced to relocate, he has
lost weight and had trouble sleeping and has experienced marital
relationship problems.
"Since his employment with Counterdefendent
ended, Mr. Tripp has received numerous threats to his personal safety,
which, upon information and belief, have been stirred by the foregoing
false and defamatory statements published about him by
Counterdefendent," the complaint reads. "Mr. Tripp has even been
followed and trailed on multiple occasions by unidentified individuals."
Tripp
is a former Naval aviation electronics engineer who was assigned to
work on the production lines at Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada for the
battery module and the stator, where he had direct responsibility for
reporting scrap and non-conforming material volumes to superiors. He
claims that the company began generating enormous amounts of scrap waste
beginning in March, when it was scrambling to increase production of
the Model 3 to 5,000 units per week, and emailed Musk directly in May with his concerns.
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He
claims the following day he was reassigned to the battery module
production line, where he said he continued to witness troubling
practices. He claims that the manufacturing operating system shows that
from January to mid-May, between $150 million and $200 million worth of
battery module parts had been categorized as scrap.
Tesla hasn't commented on the countersuit. The company is set to report its second-quarter earnings later Wednesday.
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