Saboteur or whistleblower? Battle between Elon Musk and former Tesla employee turns ugly, exposing internal rancor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2018/06/21/saboteur-or-whistleblower-battle-between-elon-musk-and-former-tesla-employee-turns-ugly-exposing-internal-rancor/
Hours after Tesla had sued its former employee on charges he had stolen company secrets, and days after chief Elon Musk had called him a saboteur, the Silicon Valley automaker made a startling claim. The company had received a call from a friend of the employee, Martin Tripp, saying he would be coming to Tesla's Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada to "shoot the place up," according to a Tesla spokesman.
But Tripp, who says he became a whistleblower after seeing what he called dangerous conditions in the company's car batteries, told The Washington Post he had said no such thing. Confirmed emails exchanged that day between him and Musk, provided to The Post and confirmed by Tesla, show bitter words from both men, but also Tripp saying he had "never made a threat." Tesla's claims, he said, are "absurd! Insane is a better word."