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Tesla employee accused of tipping reporters; to pay $400,000 to end lawsuit

Arhama Altaf

01st Dec, 2020. 09:30 pm
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Former Tesla employee ordered to pay $400,000 after allegedly accused of tipping reporters about production inefficiencies and delays

According to the details, the payment by Martin Tripp, a former process technician at Tesla’s Gigafactory, was part of a settlement detailed in a Monday filing with the federal court in that city.

Tesla and Musk became embroiled in a public dispute with Tripp in June 2018, when it fired and then sued him.

Earlier in September, the judge dismissed Tripp’s defamation counterclaim over statements from Tesla, including an email to employees where Elon Musk accused him of “sabotage”.

According to the court filing, the accused did not contest Tesla’s claims that he stole trade secrets, and acknowledged that his counterclaims were funded by a short seller of Tesla stock.

Moreover, the Electric-Car maker had recorded a major profit spike of a fifth quarter in a row despite the pandemic.

Tesla said it made $8.7 billion revenue in the three months to September, as deliveries rose 54%.

The firm said it still hoped to meet its goal of delivering more than 500,000 vehicles this year but warned this had “become more difficult”. Analysts also warned the firm faced mounting competition.

So far, Tesla has delivered fewer than 32,000 cars to customers this year – but nearly half of those – 139,593 – came in the three months ended 30 September.

That was up 54% from the prior quarter and 44% year-on-year.

However, the carmaker automatically rose to a profit of $311 million – more than double what it made during the same period last year.

Tesla employee accused of tipping reporters; to pay $400,000 to end lawsuit

Arhama Altaf

Articles