During the summer an ex-Tesla employee named Martin Tripp was accused of and sued for sabotaging the company’s product line as well as leaking its secrets. Now, Tripp’s being sued for $167 million in damages.
In retaliation to the initial lawsuit, Tripp accused Tesla and Musk of skirting safety procedures in the Nevada Gigafactory and by shipping Model 3s with faulty batteries. In addition to this, Tripp is asking to depose Musk and roughly 10 other Tesla employees.
The electric car company is asking Tripp to pay for the damages to the stock prices that were allegedly caused by the negative information he shared with the press regarding Tesla around the time of the first lawsuit, reads a report from CNBC.
Tripp was sued initially on June 20th for writing software to hack Tesla’s manufacturing operating system and transferring several gigabytes of data to outside parties. The lawsuit has been ongoing since then.
Tripp’s team is asking to hold depositions with Musk and roughly 10 other Tesla employees, but the EV manufacturer is attempting to limit his access to Musk and lower the number of dispositions that it agrees to, according to CNBC
Tripp’s lawyer said to CNBC via email that the new lawsuit against Tripp is “absurd.” Further, he says “in this case, where Mr. Tripp is being sued for more than $167,000,000 and has asserted counterclaims against Tesla, more than ten depositions is certainly reasonable and appropriate.”
Source: CNBC
