The fired Tesla employee accused by Elon Musk of stealing and sharing company secrets has turned to GoFundMe to help pay for his expected legal expenses.
Martin Tripp worked at Tesla’s Gigafactory as a process technician and reportedly hacked into the firm’s Manufacturing Operating System, collected sensitive data and installed damaging software on Tesla’s computers.
While Tripp claims that he is a whistleblower trying to expose Tesla, the electric automaker sued him shortly after finding out what he’d done. Tripp claims that Tesla installed damaged batteries in new Model 3 cars, has misrepresented the number of vehicles it’s made, and been improperly storing potentially hazardous scrap material.
On his GoFundMe page, Tripp is asking for $500,000 to support counsel in the Tesla lawsuit and to prepare a counter-suit. At the time of writing, the page had attracted a touch over $6,000 in donations.
“Tesla and Elon are much more powerful than I could ever be. They have already intimidated me, belittled, and lied about me. They have defamed me and continue to tell complete fabricated lies about me. They have gone so far as to lie about me threatening the Gigafactory as well,” Tripp says in his appeal.
“For all of this, I want Tesla, and even more specifically Elon, to pay; not only for what they have done to me, but for what they are doing to the world.”
Tesla portrays Tripp as nothing more than an upset former employee who is retaliating after being reassigned rather than receiving the promotion he was seeking. Tripp denies these allegations and says that he had to bring his claims to the media to expose Tesla’s practices.
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