Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get any more bizarre for Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, it did. Add allegations of sabotage to the company’s ongoing workforce woes and its struggle to raise Model 3 production and boost profitability to avoid what looks like an unavoidable capital raise later this year to fund a voracious spending pace.
Along with another inexplicable battery fire. The creation of the GA4, or General Assembly 4 line, in a giant tent. And Musk’s obsession with the bears that have bet against Tesla’s share price performance to the tune of roughly $12 billion at last count.
Never mind all the other drama seen in recent months. The bizarre and confrontational post-earnings call. The Twitter tirade against Warren Buffett and the threat to get into the candy business. The ongoing concerns about the safety and efficacy of Tesla’s semi-autonomous Autopilot system and its tendency to crash into parked firetrucks and police vehicles.
The latest is that the automaker has sued Martin Tripp, a former process technician at its Gigafactory in Nevada, for hacking its “confidential and trade secret information.” The suit goes on to accuse Tripp of “transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities” along with capturing a number of confidential photos and a video of the secretive manufacturer’s production line.
Honestly, it all sounds like something out of a made-for-TV drama.