Tesla says it caught ‘malicious sabotage’ at Fremont factory

Tesla reportedly caught an employee engaging in “malicious sabotage” at its Fremont factory, according to an internal email to employees.

Al Prescott, Tesla’s vice president of legal and acting general counsel, wrote in an email to Fremont factory employees obtained by Bloomberg:

“Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than [sic] an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory. Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later.

He didn’t elaborate on what form the “sabotage attempt” took, but he said that the employee was terminated.

Bloomberg reported:

“The employee, who was not named, allegedly sought to “cover up his tracks,” blame a co-worker and destroy a company computer, the email said. “Ultimately, after being shown the irrefutable evidence, the employee confessed. As a result, we terminated employment.”

Prescott added in the email to employees:

“We place tremendous trust in our employees and value everyone’s contribution. However, whatever the personal motivations of the attacker were, these are crimes, violations of our code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees,”

The news comes after we learned earlier this year that Tesla and the FBI prevented a $1 million ransomware hack at Gigafactory Nevada.

In that case, a Tesla employee was actually essential in preventing the sabotage to take place.

Electrek’s Take

I’d like to know what this is about.

In the case in Nevada earlier this year, it clearly was a ransomware attempt.

Was it the same thing in Fremont? Someone got tempted by the $1 million offer or is it something else entirely?

We know that Tesla has previously stretched the term “sabotage” with employees doing things they shouldn’t do before.

If it’s serious like the attempt in Nevada in August, the employee will not just be fired, but there will also be charges against the person — unlike the case against Martin Tripp that Tesla also called sabotage.

We will have to wait and see I guess. If you have more information about it, please feel free to reach out via Fred@electrek.co, via Wickr: Fredev, or through my social media: Twitter and Instagram.