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Elon Musk Emails Employees About 'Extensive and Damaging Sabotage' By Employee (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an email to all employees on Monday morning about a factory fire, and seemed to reference possible sabotage. Now, CNBC has learned that Musk also sent an e-mail to all employees at Tesla late on Sunday night alleging that he has discovered a saboteur in the company's ranks. Musk said this person had conducted "quite extensive and damaging sabotage" to the company's operations, including by changing code to an internal product and exporting data to outsiders. In the email, Musk said "the investigation will continue in depth this week" to "figure out if [the saboteur] was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations [that want Tesla to disappear]." You can read the full email via CNBC's report.
From: Elon Musk
To: Everybody
Subject: Some concerning news
June 17, 2018 11:57 p.m.
I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.
The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad. His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move.
However, there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye, so the investigation will continue in depth this week. We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations.
As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways?
Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious.
Please be extremely vigilant, particularly over the next few weeks as we ramp up the production rate to 5k/week. This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us.
If you know of, see or suspect anything suspicious, please send a note to [email address removed for privacy] with as much info as possible. This can be done in your name, which will be kept confidential, or completely anonymously.
Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week!
Will follow this up with emails every few days describing the progress and challenges of the Model 3 ramp.
Thanks for working so hard to make Tesla successful,
Elon
(copied from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html)
Tesla didn’t lose because the judge found that Clarkson had performed a fair test of their car. They lost because Clarkson argued that his show shouldn’t be considered a serious car review, but light entertainment meant to amuse rather than inform. And in that case you don’t have to be truthful.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Also, if there is any substance to this, the last thing he should do is communicate it in this fashion.
If you read the email, he's actually caught the guy and had a confession. Getting this guy, likely with the police arresting him (given the accusation) likely blew the cover of the investigation. There is no benefit from secrecy any more.
At this point he firstly deters any other conspirators by letting them know he knows. They are less likely to do damage during this crucial time. Secondly he warns other loyal Tesla employees to look out, and that's a real reason to give accurate information so that they are more likely to spot the problem.
Open communication is probably the right thing at this stage.
The 1st Amendment disagrees. There are no cases where you must be truthful except one: under legal oath. I'll be the first to tell anyone, liars suck shit. But the 1st protects them from answering for their lies, at least while they're on this plane of existence. It does not, however, protect them from karma.
British court, British judge. US First Amendment not in play. Requirements for truth notably more stringent.
This is a perfectly normal looking company email from Musk. One can argue that he writes them knowing that they'll leak, but there's nothing about the style in this one that's different from any of the numerous others over the years. They're generally a mix of "here's the problems/issues we currently need to address ASAP" and a pep talk.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
Yes how foolish that those early adopters bought things that work just fine.
There are not many vehicle manufacturers with as bad a reputation for QC as Tesla.
Now let's talk about reputation shall we?
Telsa has a QC reputation mostly built up based on incredibly stupid nit-picking with only one real major flaw to date: The doors on the Model X. Most of their quality control issues were along the lines of "OMG the gap in this pannel is 1mm wider than that other panel, oh woes me!" In the mean time customers are like "LOL this door has panel gaps? I didn't hear you over the sound of how fast this thing accellerates and how sweet the ride is!" Hell most early reviews about fit and finish which grilled the few minor nitpicks reluctantly then proceeded to say how absolutely awesome of a car was produced. Oh but the stitching on the leather wasn't perfect, so horrible, much upsetness!
But all in all QC isn't the issue here. We're talking about company responses. So what kind of a reputation does Tesla have there?
- They caught the world by surprise when they offered free feature upgrades over the air.
- They borderline no questions asked repair shit most companies need to get dragged to court over (my own experience with GM was having the ignition switch fail 3 days before the warranty expired on my Astra and them then waiting 3 days to get back to me so they could try and tell me it was out of warranty and charge me $400 for the repair, and towing as well. Fortunately I lived in a country where the regulator had teeth and they forced GM to not only tow and fix the car but also re-imburse me for the rental costs for delaying me as long as they did).
- Tesla invested in a mobile repair fleet sending people out to customer's houses for this kind of stuff.
- A consumer reports came out with a sub par rating for the Model 3 brakes. Tesla stepped up and fixed it.
- Telsa recalling cars with actual faults quickly and voluntarily. In the meantime what did an NHTSA rep say in a public hearing about Chyrisler? "In every one of the 23 recalls, we have identified ways in which Fiat Chrysler failed to do its job."
Yeah you're right. Fools and their money are easily parted. One day maybe the fools will wake up and actually buy from Tesla instead of risking their lives.