How Ilon Musk tried to destroy the informant in the ranks of Tesla, and what came of it

It all started with the loss of composure on Twitter, and ended with a false accusation of mass murder. Former security manager says Tesla has decided to spy on employees and spread misinformation about them

Warning information for company employees about the wanted criminal turned out to be false

By the extraordinary standards of life of Ilona Musk, this story was far from a blockbuster. June 4, 2018 in the Business Insider wrote that Tesla Inc. rejects or sends to rework 40% of raw materials at the Gigafabrika factory located in the Nevada desert, where batteries are produced. The article quoted a source who calculated that such low efficiency cost the electric car company Mask $ 150 million, and described the huge mountains of rejected materials found in the factory. Tesla denied these accusations, and after a few hours the world forgot about it.

Peace, but not Ilon Musk. Although at the annual meeting of the company, held the next day, no one asked him about this article, he digested this information for weeks and sent a team of investigators to search for someone who shared this information with the press.
')
They determined that Martin Trip [Martin Tripp], a 40-year-old thin-bodied man, who had worked in production at various factories, and then settled on the Giga-factory conveyor, was responsible for the leak. Later, Trip said that he was an idealist, trying to improve the work of Tesla; Mask considered him a dangerous enemy, engaged in "large-scale and destructive sabotage," as he wrote in an internal memo. He also believed that Trip shared information not only with the press, but also with "unknown third parties."


Martin Trip

Could something more be behind this, Musk argued out loud? Could Trip co-ordinate its activities with one of Tesla's many enemies - oil companies, competing automakers, Wall Street short sellers? “The list of organizations wishing Tesla death is very long,” he warned.

On June 20, the company filed a lawsuit against Trip in the amount of $ 167 million. The same day, Trip was contacted from the sheriff's office of Storey County (Nevada). Tesla's security department warned the police that an anonymous call to the company was reported that Trip was planning a massacre at the Gig Factory.

When the police attacked Trip in the evening of that day, he was unarmed and wept for fear. He said that he was terribly afraid of Mask, and suggested that the billionaire himself could make this anonymous call. The sheriff had to reassure Trip and then call Tesla to report that there was no threat or danger from Trip.

Many company directors would try to simply ignore a man like Trip. But Musk decided instead to destroy him, as evidenced by evidence obtained from the police, former employees and from the documentation of the internal investigation conducted at Tesla.

The public relations department was spreading rumors about Trip's suicidal tendencies and his membership in a group plotting a global conspiracy. On Twitter, Musk suggested that a reporter from Business Insider, Lynette Lopez, received money from short sellers and said that Trip acknowledged the fact of receiving bribes from her in exchange for "Tesla's valuable intellectual property." Lopez denied the charges.

The incident with Trip led to such an epic storm in social networks that the US Securities and Exchange Commission forced Tesla to hire a special twitter supervisor, a lawyer who must deal with the approval of tweets Mask. Since last summer, among the wild antics Mask listed:

1. The baseless accusation of a British diver speleologist's twitter in pedophilia.
2. A false tweet that investors raised money to buy Tesla at a price of $ 420 per share, which led to a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
3. Somehow, the ensuing feud with the second-tier hip-hop artist Azilia Banks (“Ilon will soon find out who among us is more influential,” wrote Banks in her Instagram.
4. Smoking cant during the live podcast, leading to a review of security clearance required to work with the space company SpaceX.

The way Musk behaves with Trip, threatens with the complication of all this legal and regulatory mess. A security manager at Gigafabrika, a former military man with a characteristic haircut named Sean Guthro, complained about the company's work to the Securities Commission. Gutro says that the operation related to the elimination of information leakage was unethical. He claims that the investigators broke into Trip's phone, tracked him, and misled the police about their actions. Guthro says that Trip did not sabotage and did not break anything, and that Musk knew this and wanted to destroy his reputation through the dissemination of misinformation.

A spokesperson for Tesla said in a statement that Gutro’s accusations were “wrong and too bloated,” but did not go into details. She said that the company had no problems with Gutro until he was fired for “poor performance”. Gutro disputes this and says that basically his performance was good. He says he made his statement so that regulators and the public know what Tesla is capable of.

“They can afford something that I didn’t even suspect,” he says. “I just laid bricks.”

Gutro is not the first among those who decided to tell the world how to solve safety issues in a fast-growing auto company. Two years ago, Richard Jacobs, global research manager at Uber Technologies Inc., said that his colleagues secretly recorded conversations of directors from competing companies and their own employees, as well as doing other ethically questionable affairs . Later, he took back some of the accusations, but the leadership of Uber has already apologized, renounced surveillance, and promised to play fair. Two Uber investigators, accused of Jacobs, Nicholas Gichinto and Jacob Nocon, sued him for defamation, calling his statements "murder of reputation for money." They said that because of his accusations, it would be difficult for them to find a new job.

They were wrong. While the press reacted skeptically to the alleged atrocities of Uber - “It's just n **** what kind of lazy accusations of crime,” Amir Efrati tweeted, the Information reporter - Musk saw promising applicants. In early 2018, he appointed Jeff Jones, Uber's director of security, chief of global security at Tesla, and hired Gichinto and Nocon as investigators, and conducted interviews with all three personally. Mask defended Gichinto in front of the Gizmodo site, saying that he "was made a scapegoat in Uber for the sins of others." Tesla did not provide an opportunity for Gichinto or Nocon to answer our questions; Jones, who left the company in November, declined to comment.


Gutro

At that time, chaos reigned at GigaFabrika, a huge three-story enterprise 30 km east of Reno. Musk constantly warned that Tesla had to survive the " production hell " while the company barely hired new employees and accelerated the production of the Model 3 sedan. He suffered greatly because of what was happening, slept in the office, and later gave tearful interviews, where he admitted that got to the handle. “These were the most painful, hellish few months in my life,” he said at the company's annual meeting in June 2018.

It was this chaos and wanted to reassure Trip, a former US Navy electronics specialist who came to work in 2017. He complained to his superiors that everything was constantly changing at the factory, that spare parts were scattered everywhere, and often this was either unsafe or wasteful. He offered the bosses to try to reduce the number of culling, and then wrote a letter to Mask, but received no answer. “I continued to tell this to managers, supervisors, everyone who just wanted to listen to it,” Trip told the Guardian later. “But everyone said: Yeah, well, okay.”

Gutro says that if Trippe was ignored, then in particular because the problems he mentioned were not the most difficult. Gigafabrika, one of the largest productions in the world by area, was filled with workers so quickly that it was almost impossible to control them. Shortly after Gutro began work in January 2018, he discovered that many employees, some of whom lived directly in the machines at the production site, used cocaine and meth in the toilets. Others had sex in the unfinished parts of the factory. Gutro says that the scanners that the security guards used to check employee badges did not work reliably, and they allowed anyone who had a piece of paper with him that looked quite convincing. Local recycling stations called him, saying that the thieves were trying to sell them strange parts from electric cars.

Gutu was supposed to come up with a system that will restore order. He is a former marine, 32 years old, hefty, with a sleeve stuffed on his left arm. He worked on Facebook Inc. In the security center, where they responded to dangerous situations that hit the video broadcast. The work was ungrateful, but Gutro says that at Facebook the professional atmosphere was much better than at Tesla. Gutro said that a company lawyer told him how the previous head of security at Gigafabrika, Andrew Cheroni, quit after an unpleasant scandal. The lawyer said that Cheroni, under orders of Mask, was spying on trade union meetings, and then threatened to tell everyone about it when he quit. Cheroni declined to comment on this information.


Gigafabrika

And while Gutro was trying to deal with the problems of sex, drugs and extreme disorganization, Trip decided to appeal to the public. He climbed into the internal production base and rummaged there in order to estimate how much material was wasted. He decided to turn to Lopez, who wrote about Tesla for Business Insider, sent her all the numbers relating to waste, and images of parts of batteries that, according to him, were flammable.

Trip hoped that when Lopez's story was made public, Tesla would have to make the changes he proposed. But instead, Tesla stated that the waste is acceptable, and damaged batteries are not placed on the finished machines. “We had a high percentage of processing in the early stages of production of the Model 3, as would be expected for any new production,” said Tesla for Business Insider. “We want to make sure that only the highest quality parts are used to create the best machines for our customers.”

In the meantime, Guthro went to work to find the source of the data leak, and was watching videos in the shops. At the same time, according to him, Gichinto and Nocon spun the sequence of events in the opposite direction to find out who got access to the data, on the basis of which it would be possible to compile the numbers that fell into Business Insider. And it turned out that exactly the information that was quoted in the article was accessed only by Trip.

The security men found their man, but did not know what other secrets he could spy. Tripa and several other workers were asked to give away their laptops, ostensibly for a routine update, and in fact - for an audit. Gutro also sent a security guard to the assembly shop under cover to watch over Trip.

On June 14, at the arrival of Trip, he was met by a representative of the personnel department, who took him to the meeting room. Gichinto and Nocon were waiting for him there. Judging by the decoding received by Bloomberg Businessweek, the conversation began in friendly tones, and investigators asked Trip about the reports sent to them to the authorities. “For me, this is a public safety issue,” said Trip, patiently talking about the pierced batteries he had seen. They mentioned the article in Business Insider several times, without asking Trip directly if he was a source of information.

Then, two and a half hours later, the investigators uncovered the fact that Trip was the only person who had access to production statistics. Trip admitted that he is the source of the leak. But from decoding it follows that he denied accusations of taking bribes - despite the fact that Mask later tweeted the opposite - and said that he didn’t tell anyone else. Guthro, who wasn’t in the meeting room, says he once saw his colleague read text messages and mail sent by Trip during an interrogation break. He says that somehow Tesla could get access to Trip's communications in real time.

The interrogation lasted almost six hours. Towards the end, the investigators seemed to sympathize with Trip, telling him that he "didn’t even do anything bad." Trip took out his phone and showed them the video on which he plays the guitar. “Dude, this is impressive,” said one of them. Gout said that they reported on the whole Mask, who was in a rage, via video link. Trip fired from Tesla on June 19th.

The next day, news of the lawsuit leaked to the Internet. Trip looked for information about himself and found an article entitled “Martin Trip: 5 facts you need to know about,” which said that he lives in an apartment in the city of Sparks. He panicked, imagining who might try to track him down, and sent Mask an email. “You deserve all this with a lie to the public and investors,” he wrote.

But his former boss gladly began to subordinate him. “Threats to my address make your situation only worse,” answered Musk. He later wrote: “You need to be ashamed of having substituted other people. You are a terrible person. ”

“I NEVER substituted someone else and did not even make it clear that someone else is involved in obtaining documents about your WASTE by COST MILLIONS, problems with security and lies to investors and the whole WORLD,” answered Trip. “Letting cars on the road with problems safe is what it means to be a terrible person!”

An anonymous call about the shooting entered the Tesla call center a few hours later; Guthro then redirected him to Sheriff Storey's office. Tesla also printed a leaflet BOLO - be on the lookout [be alert / approx. transl.] - with the smiling face of the trip on it and the words "Do not let him into the territory."


Sheriff's Office of Storey County in Virginia City (NV)

After Gutro called the sheriff, he made another call to private detectives who, according to him, were on the company's salary, and asked them to find Trip. Detectives found him before the police, tracking him to the casino "Naget" in Reno. Gutro says the boss told him not to tell the police that Tesla was watching Trip.

Meanwhile, Musk wrote a letter to the Guardian reporter: “They just told me that they called us at the Gigafabrika and said that he was going to come back to us and shoot people,” Mask wrote. “I hope all of you are fine,” the reporter replied.

Sheriff's assistant, Tony Dosen, met with Trip on the street near the casino. A video from a police officer’s camera shows how Trip was shaking and sobbing as he approached the policeman. He said he has no weapons. Then he sat down on a bench and began to tell the police what happened after he made a clumsy attempt to convey to one of the richest and most famous people in the world.

“They say all the time that I am stealing data,” one could hear the words of Trip between sobs. “But I'm not that smart.” He said that he had learned about the threat that he had allegedly expressed from a Washington Post reporter who had called him after a message from Tesla.

“It's pretty weird,” said Dozen Tripu. - As if in a movie.

The office of the Sheriff of Storey is located in Virginia City, a town that boasts a single traffic light, a population of 855 people and commonplace tourist attractions in the style of the "Wild West". This is such a sleepy place that the police are often called to drive the raccoons out of the garbage cans. Among their main tasks is to issue work permits for prostitutes in a local brothel.

Gerald Antinoro is a sheriff, and looks appropriate in black cowboy boots, black denim vest and black Wrangler jeans, with a gun on his hip. Sitting in his office and telling the interview about this incident a few months later, he says that he is still puzzled and amused by the threat of shooting at the Tesla factory. He says that when he began to deal with an anonymous call after the police talked with Trip, the threat seemed to him not as terrible as one could think from the company's statement. The caller said that Trip is unstable, but did not say that he went to the factory to arrange shooting. “Remember how you used to play with your phone with your child?” - asks Antinoro. “It's just that the elephant was blown out of a fly.” He stopped the investigation when Tesla refused to provide a colleague Trip who could make the call. From the viewpoint of Antinoro, one of the oddities of this situation is that after he told the company that the threat was false, he was asked to issue a press release in order to exaggerate this situation. He refused, but Tesla still made it public. The next morning, after the threat was exposed, a company representative sent an SMS to another reporter: “Yesterday, during the day, a friend called us Trip, and said that Trip was going to come to the Factory“ and shoot everything there. ”

“This is one of those mysterious cases,” said the sheriff. “The only way the press could learn about all this is from the company itself.”

At the end of the story, Trip hired a lawyer, and filed a complaint with the Securities Commission, which receives up to 10,000 such complaints a year. Of every hundred complaints, less than one turns into a real case, but an impressive amount can go to successful informers - up to 30% of the fine.

The lawyer, Stuart Meisner, specializes in working with informants. He is known for working with the Monsanto Co. employee . , received in 2016 a reward of $ 22 million. But Meisner doesn’t seem to choose clients very meticulously. On his website you can see a whistle, a bag of money and a photo of the lawyer himself. “Your reward as an informant can pull millions of dollars,” it says. - We will make a discount from any offer of competitors by 20% ". Meisner says he carefully checks potential customers.

Since then, Trip has already changed a lawyer, but the publicity of the case attracted the attention of one of Gutro’s subordinates, Carl Hansen. Last summer, Hansen, a former military investigator and special agent, flew to New York to meet with Meisner, who arranged for his performance on Fox Business. His accusations were even wilder than Trip: Hansen said that Tesla ignores a huge number of cases of theft and drug trafficking on the territory of the Gigafabrika. “A member of the Mexican cartel supplied large quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine,” he said on the air, and complained that his investigation into the incident was prematurely closed.


Karl hansen

Hansen returned to Reno and, as if nothing had happened, went to work, apparently without thinking that Mask might not like his sudden media tour. He was fired that day. Sheriff Antinoro said he was investigating these allegations, and they did not seem credible to him. Musk told Gizmodo that Hansen was “completely out of his mind," using the peanut emoji. [nuts - crazy, peanut - peanuts / approx. trans.].

Gutro says that after being fired from Tesla in December, Hansen convinced him of the need to publicize the incident. He hired Meisner and sent a formal complaint to the SEC, confirming Hansen’s statements. “We began to identify certain trends, and this is what happened,” says Gutro. He is worried that after such public outlets it will be difficult for him to find a job, but he says that it is too important to tell people the truth.

Gutro and Hansen, apparently, sincerely believe that the actions against Trip, with which they helped the company, were unfaithful. They also say, without evidence, that an investigator from Tesla installed a device in the factory that monitors all personal conversations.

Even if what Gutro and Hansen say is true, it is unclear whether the Securities Commission will open the case. Trip also may have more relevant information. He moved to Hungary, where his wife has a family to avoid public attention; but in July he received a call from the Commission, and talked with him for several hours. A man who knows the details of the conversation said that Trip told the agency that the data he found contradicted the production figures that Mask was advertising. “What Tesla did with Trip is terrible,” says Trip’s lawyer, Robert Mitchell, who represents him in a lawsuit against the company. “His life is over. He is afraid of these guys. ”

Musk, remaining in his repertoire, is still arguing with the Commission. The agency asks the judge to find him guilty of violating the terms of the agreement entered into after the tweet about $ 420, and may demand that he be removed from the management of the company. This battle distracts from the fact that this year was wonderful for Mask. Tesla achieved its goal of producing 5,000 cars a week in July. Last month, the company lowered the price for the Model 3 to $ 35,000, although it seemed impossible.In March, the company introduced a crossover, Model Y. In early March, SpaceX successfully completed the testing of a capsule that will some day deliver astronauts into orbit.

Antinoro said that he forbade staff to investigate crimes at the Gig Factory until Tesla cooperates. He decided that big business lives in some kind of strange world. “Standard Oil was probably as strange as Ilon Musk,” he says.