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Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee
- hotdog97 8y agoThis is not stable behavior of a CEO of a billion dollar company. Edit: This is not the first time that he's been calling "sabotage": https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/implication-of-sabotage-adds-intrigue-to-spacex-investigation/2016/09/30/5bb60514-874c-11e6-a3ef-f35afb41797f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/implication-... (Open in incognito mode for the paywall.)
- nodesocket 8y agoHow is not keeping your employees in the loop in a critical week and reminding them sabotage won't be tolerated not stable?
- minimaxir 8y agoA culture of fear is generally demotivating.
- maxander 8y agoAsk yourself, though, how often you’ve seen emails like this from other companies in the news. Probably about never? Whatever you think about his reasons, Musk is going way against standard procedure here- and this in the field of company management, not the kind of engineering problems where his weird approach has paid off.
- api 8y agoEven if it's true I doubt the wisdom of publicizing it. It could derail any internal investigation, not to mention potentially looking like bullshit excuse-making. Industrial espionage is real. I've heard plenty of stories. Usually it's handled very quietly and internally for exactly these reasons.
- yasp 8y agoI'm curious whether this would require disclosure with the SEC as a material event, as well as whether a police report would have been filed.
- glbrew 8y agoI think in the case of Tesla and their recent production failures they want to publicize it to explain shortages and help defend their stock.
- minimaxir 8y ago> This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties. How do "false usernames" work in a modern development environment where all commits are tied to a single real-world user?
- nevi-me 8y agoI don't know about at the infrastructure level, but seems possible to use false name and email on git. I mention infrastructure because I presume that commits should be reviewed, and that it shouldn't be possible to update software outside of an automated/controlled structure that relies on only pulling code from authorised branches.
- tlb 8y agoWith a vanilla git configuration, it's as easy as: $ vi centrifuge_rpm_controller.cc $ git commit --author "Bob Goodguy <bob@tesla.com>" -a -m "Totally harmless changes" $ git push In a high-stakes environment, it's probably worth signing commits. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work
- prepend 8y agoMy company only allows authenticated users to commit changes. Even pull requests on our public repos get scanned and reviewed before human review. And pull requests are infrequent enough that unknown users usually involve some interaction. It seems like if an organization is allowing randos to push changes, they would also allow randos with valid pgp to push changes as well. So the investigation would change to “Who the fudge is B8956DBFEE7C105C?” instead of “Who the fudge is Bob Goodguy?”
- zxcmx 8y agoWhat you might not realise is that the author of a commit is not related to the (authenticated) user who pushes. You couldn’t merge changes from multiple people otherwise. Signed commits do fix this although you have to be careful about your threat model. Lots of software (e.g. gitlab) will prevent alice from pretending to be bob but will not protect you against server compromise (because public key directory and signing enforcement are done on the server). Working at an org which does signed commits, it doesn’t buy us quite as much as we would like. Also, if you enforce signing you can’t mash a server-side “merge” button anymore because that commit would need to be signed... This complicates the pr/mr workflow for teams and increases resistance from those who don’t see the value in signing.
- nodesocket 8y agoAt the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, perhaps a short-seller paid an employee to sabotage. It is not out of the realm of possibility, especially since $TSLA is at a whopping 33% float short.
- yasp 8y agoNot that anyone cares or asked what I think but I wouldn't be surprised if Elon ends up surpassing Crazie Eddie Antar [0] as far as fraud goes. (I have no idea whether he is a fraud. He just strikes me as likely a fraud.) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie
- nodesocket 8y agoI see a lot of resentment and "hate" on HN about Elon and quite honestly I don't understand where it is coming from. Where are the facts that Elon/Tesla is one gigantic fraud? Where is the scientific proof?
- yasp 8y agoI hope Elon is real. I want Elon to be real. I just fear that he isn't. I don't have "scientific proof" for you.
- drak0n1c 8y agoThe media's opinion of Elon has turned sour lately due to his criticism of bloggers and tabloid articles (ie Daily Beast). That is starting to shape the minds of those who follow the media very closely.
- nodesocket 8y agoJust because the media has turned doesn't mean his criticism of them is invalid or incorrect. Negatively in news is at absurd levels... Peddling outrage sells.
- badwolf 8y ago
- omarforgotpwd 8y agoEveryone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He gave very specific examples of things this person did. If you were someone with a large position against Telsa, or a competing manufacturer, or an oil / gas company finally picking things up after a terrible oil price collapse, yeah maybe it makes sense to go mess things up subtly enough that the company slips a little bit closer to bankruptcy? I'm not saying I 100% believe this theory, but when you're working at this level as CEO I feel like you have to at least consider the possibility.
- jcranmer 8y agoFrom the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. To claim that someone is trying to do so is an extraordinary claim, and we all know the saying about extraordinary claims...
- Jedd 8y ago> From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. Can you show your working in that calculation please? My understanding is that the reward / risk ratio is extremely high for more than a handful of obvious players.
- kbenson 8y agoThat was my initial reaction to that assessment as well. Normally the risk-reward ratio is high, but with the largest short position of the market (at some point inthe last couple months, possibly still currently) at above $10 billion, that's a lot of potential reward that might be capable of being paid out, even when we consider that much of it is small individual positions.
- omarforgotpwd 8y agoElon says that the person claimed he did it because he didn't get a promotion he wanted. That's probably true because it would be the least extraordinary possibility. But it doesn't hurt to consider and prepare for extraordinary circumstances.
- coldnose 8y agoI concede it's possible that saboteurs are operating within Tesla, but lashing out at invisible enemies sends a strong "crazy" signal. Elon has been sending a lot of crazy signals lately...
- yasp 8y ago> "NEXT!! NEXT QUESTION!! This question is boring. No more boring questions. No more questions based on facts or analysis of Tesla. Please focus all questions on space travel, the mars colony, big data, SpaceX, with leading questions to imply a merger with SpaceX. If you dont have futuristic questions that defer reality, at least ask questions that let me assure you that I took physics in college and can now ignore basic battery physics in my press releases and stock promotion scam. Now someone pass the cocaine so I can make it through this call. Where’s that kid from YouTube with the fun questions??" [ insert "everything is fine" meme ]
- naikrovek 8y agoWell the email said that the guy admitted to it, and did it because he was denied a promotion. Not so invisible.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Maybestring 8y agoThe boogyman isn't the sabeteur, it's the mysterious cabal of oil barons and short sellers that put him up to it.
- JoshCole 8y agoI think the boogeyman is whoever the guy was exporting data too, since they found data exportation features. Because why have data exportation unless you are doing it too somewhere.
- 8y ago
- chalkandpaste 8y agoSounds like all the bad decisions about who to hire (low cost, inexperienced workers) and who to fire (higher cost, experienced workers), how long to force people to work, overuse of automation, etc., has caught up with Tesla. And now Musk wants to externalize it so Tesla doesn't look bad and loose _even_ more orders of the model 3.
- aitrean 8y agoI think you just have a lot of pot shots to take against Tesla (most of which seem to have no precedent??), and want to project them onto this situation. This story relates to an internal email Musk sent around, telling staff to speak up about suspicious behaviour. It's not like he brought this to a shareholders meeting.
- mlindner 8y agoSounds like you have a short position on the stock? Do you mind revealing if you have any position on TSLA? Disclaimer: I hold TSLA stock.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hobolord 8y agoListen y'all it's sabotage
- toastermoster 8y agoI can't stand it, I know you planned it... gotta set straight this Watergate.
- abledon 8y ago"young npm punks littering the thread with beastie boy references and old C wizards grumbling at the youth of today"
- s2g 8y agoWarming up the excuses. /s I wonder if any of these changes made it into production automobiles. Hurray for OTA updates to safety critical systems. Go Silicon Valley, disrupting lives everywhere!
- Fricken 8y agoAhh, the little man again. The little man has been giving Elon and Tesla problems for a long time. Early on Musk thought Henry Fisker, who led the design on the Model S then left to start his own EV company was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against him, but it turned out Henry wasn't the little man, and the lawsuit was meritless. The little man talked Musk into building falcon wing doors into the Model X, and it wasn't until production had been delayed by many months fussing with those stupid doors that Musk realized he had been tricked by the little man. Who put the little man up to this? Was it the Koch Brothers? No one knows for sure. The little man talked Elon into putting expensive autonomous driving hardware into every new Tesla, even though the software hadn't been made yet, and most Tesla buyers weren't willing to pay for it. Don't worry, said the little man, Tesla's will be driving autonomously coast to coast by christmas 2017, and Tesla will be the greatest most futuristic company ever. But Christmas 2017 came and went and Autopilot still sucked. Damn that little man! The little Man must be Sterling Anderson, the director of Autopilot left the company right after launching HW2, and cofounded Aurora Innovation. Musk was sure Sterling was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against Aurora, but alas, it turned out the Little man was not Sterling Anderson, and the lawsuit was meritless. And then there was the time the little man tricked Elon into spending $2.6 billion worth of money Tesla didn't really have on a failing, debt ridden solar panel company. Oh you little man! The little man one night snuck into the hot tub with Elon and filled his head with visions of a highly automated production line, that the little man dubbed 'The Alien Dreadnought'. The Robots will move so fast you won't even be able to see them, said the little man. Model 3s will shoot off the assembly line like bullets out of gatling gun. Buy Grohman Engineering, said the little man. So Elon did. And many hundreds of millions of dollar later when the Alien dreadnought failed miserably, Musk realized once again he had been tricked by the little man, and all the robots had to be ripped out. Musk is determined, though. Now he has parts of the Model 3 assembly line set up in a tent in the parking lot. Elon will make it happen, even if he has to live on the factory floor. You shall not defeat me, little man! But it bothers him every night, that little man, who put him up to this? Is it the Tesla shorts? are they the ones who put the little man up to this? Was it May Mcormack? The little man has been out there, corralling the NTSB, the NLRB, the Media, financial analysts, Moody's and the UAW all to conspire against Tesla. Now the little man is setting the paint shop on fire and changing code. I'll get you if it's the last thing I do, little man!
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoThere's $10B in TSLA short positions, when the numbers get this big its not unthinkable.
- danhak 8y agoClose to $14.5B now: https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest
- csours 8y agoSerious question: How much are these shorts pushing UP the price of the stock?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- acjacobson 8y agoShorts in volume should do the opposite and act as a drag on the price because they represent shares sold today vs. in the future. That creates downward pressure on demand as the more people who sell today, fewer remain who are willing to buy at the same price.
- dkbrk 8y agoThat may be the case when the short volume is increasing, but at this point, with the stock price rising, traders should be looking to exit their short position. If anything, with such a large volume short, a short squeeze is a serious likelihood in the near future.
- mcv 8y agoI've been thinking the same thing. A short may be a sell, but it's also a guarantee that someone is going to buy in the future.
- 8y ago
- ucaetano 8y agoWe need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations. As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways? Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive. And amazing how close his speech is moving (in form) to Trump's: it is all about "rumors", "alleged", "witch hunt", "unfair"...
- gwern 8y agoI guess we'll see how serious they are about these accusations if they sue the employee or file criminal charges; if the industrial espionage & sabotage accusations are true, it should be easy to make them stick - and having told the whole company about them, Musk now needs to take action or else forfeit credibility & deterrence (both for not being a liar, and for punishing theft/sabotage).
- neotek 8y agoThe fact Musk still has any credibility at all given his penchant for making wild claims that inevitably fall flat is baffling to me. How many more spurious predictions and imaginary milestones does he need to pump out before people recognise him for the huckster monorail salesman that he is?
- manicdee 8y agoFor a huckster he’s doing a damn good job of fake shipping fake cars to fake customers who fake drive them in fake public. Excellent scam, would invest again.
- 8y ago
- dokein 8y agoHard to judge whether this is true, but with billions of dollars in play I wouldn’t put it past human nature to do something immoral.
- stephengillie 8y agoIt's enough money to make someone amplify global warming concerns in the media. Then, every news article about climate change - and even very hot days - become an advertisement for the product.
- toastermoster 8y agoI had heard from a third party vendor on the site that Profibus issues (for communication to drives) was one of the major issues at site. I wonder if that was accurate or still true if so.
- bildung 8y agoProfibus is a generic protocol for sensors and machines talking to each other (analog to JSON for web resources) so that essentially means they had problems with systems integration, e.g. getting machines integrated into the production lines. Pretty surprising actually, I thought their problems were beyond that hurdle (e.g. the automation already works but has reliability problems).
- lgleason 8y agoWhile plausible, it kind of sounds like a "Blame it on the Rain" situation. https://youtu.be/BI5IA8assfk https://youtu.be/BI5IA8assfk
- bribroder 8y agoaccording to CNC? The machines are aliiive! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control
- kumarvvr 8y agoThis seems to be the introduction of a boogeyman to cover up for failures. Or it might be true as well. Only time will tell.
- natch 8y agoThe paranoid minds here are too much. Consider the likelihoods of each explanation. Elon Musk didn’t get to where he is now by orchestrating bizarre excuses.
- whatshisface 8y agoIs it possible to make money by convincing everyone to short your company and then pushing the rug in under them by making earnings projections? Musk's recent announcements have been suspiciously suspicious.
- SuoDuanDao 8y agoprobably... 'short squeezes' do cause price spikes, and if you control the news cycle about a company, I'm sure you could benefit from the extra volatility.
- Thersites 8y agoShort sellers lost over $1 billion dollars on one day a couple weeks ago. Money talking, bullshit walking..... https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-teslas-stock-lose-more-than-1-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-teslas-stock-...
- coatmatter 8y ago$1 billion sounds like a large number, but how many people was it spread across and what percentage of their portfolio was it?
- Thersites 8y agoI love Elon, and he has been seeming a little more random lately. Shortsellers lost over $1 billion dollars in one day earlier this month, I know Elon is paranoid, but is he paranoid enough? https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-teslas-stock-lose-more-than-1-billion.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-teslas-stock-...
- flyingswift 8y agoI made this same comment on the other discussion. I find it concerning that one person was able to push malicious code to 'production'. To me, this suggests that Tesla, a company building highly sensitive software, does not employ basic branch policies. How is is it that these changes could have made it through a code review process and get deployed? If a company like Microsoft or Google announced that a disgruntled employee was able to push some code that, say, stole user information, I think the general reaction would be "why was this allowed to happen?" I'm not sure why Tesla gets a pass in this regard
- SuoDuanDao 8y agoI would say it's like the difference between China and America having a major environmental accident - we treat developing economies and businesses differently from established ones.
- asfasgasg 8y agoTesla was founded before Facebook, and I'd argue that Facebook would fall into the same category as Google or Microsoft on this question.
- cottsak 8y agoThis is a very naive comment. There will always be a small handful of engineers that can push the button to move code into PROD or even change code in PROD live. Ideally, with mature controls, the people in this list is short. But to jump to the conclusion that Tesla doesn't use good practises is very short sighted. Who's to say that external parties didn't target this person specifically because of their role/influence.
- sanderjd 8y ago> There will always be a small handful of engineers that can push the button to move code into PROD or even change code in PROD live. There is really no reason for this to be the case. Certainly all code that actually runs on the car can be required to go through review and be verifiably built, even if server code standards are more lax.
- twblalock 8y agoI have no problem believing that a disgruntled employee sabotaged part of the production line. But I do have a problem believing that all of the problems since the Model 3 started production were caused by sabotage. I also have no problem believing that the disgruntled employee simply wanted to take revenge by sabotaging his/her employer -- that's not uncommon, and it should not be difficult to prove if it really happened. Musk is going a bit too far in suggesting that other forces are involved unless he has credible evidence, and he should share it if he has it.
- paulddraper 8y ago> I do have a problem believing that all of the problems since the Model 3 started production were caused by sabotage. As do I. I don't think anyone's claiming otherwise. Model 3 certainly has had more than one issue.
- qaq 8y agoThis might be the language put there among other things to encourage employees to be vigilant (us vs evil them is an effective way to motivate people).
- senthil_rajasek 8y ago"Musk is going a bit too far in suggesting that other forces are involved unless he has credible evidence," It's not a bit too far since oil&gas companies and car companies have an established history of doing very evil things.
- twblalock 8y ago> It's not a bit too far since oil&gas companies and car companies have an established history of doing very evil things. That does not mean they have done every specific evil thing they are accused of, such as sabotaging Tesla's factory.
- senthil_rajasek 8y agoProtecting a company against sabotage is a CEO's job and competitors enticing/inducing employees into acts of sabotage is a plausible threat, in this light an internal leaked memo is not a public accusation and so reasonable.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoSo if I work at Tesla and have a bit of a dispute with my colleague, I can now dob them in to the inquisition? Sounds like a great corporate culture!
- patrickg_zill 8y agoWhat I hope is that proper forensics was done so that this can be verified in some way by a third party. I'll let people more familiar with security auditing and forensics weigh in on exactly how this should be done.
- fzeroracer 8y agoElon Musk has built up a really uncomfortable cult of personality in my opinion and I think it results in an incredibly horrendous environment to work in. The way he's been behaving over the past few weeks (incl. his since-deleted reference to a cult site) does not exactly help his credibility when he's making broad claims like this. He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake and I can't imagine him lasting very long like that if not for the cult surrounding him propping up his ego.
- Denzel 8y ago> He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake Really? I guess you glossed over him personally accepting responsibility for pushing Model X's falcon wing doors even though it was a mistake; and personally accepting responsibility for automating too much of the Model 3's assembly line which has caused massive delays. And those are just the two examples that spring to mind of him apologizing personally and acknowledging the weaknesses of his personality, multiple times, in public. Maybe you should reevaluate your absolutism.
- fzeroracer 8y agoWhere was that personal responsibility when he started slinging mud at the media for reporting on the issues his company has been very publicly going through? Or when he started insulting people in the Tesla earnings call? Or during the fatal autopilot crash? Or him linking to, again, a literal cult website and calling it good journalism.
- AckSyn 8y agoWhat "literal cult" website? Also, it's not very difficult to sling mud at the media (these days or ever), especially at the ones hyping up the collisions/crashes far more than the deserve.
- mmjaa 8y agoIf you think Musk has a cult, why do the media get a free pass? There's nothing honourable about the media that means they aren't susceptible to the same impulses that the Musk cult manifest. Or, is the media some sort of holy institution that can do no wrong?
- socratewasright 8y agoMakes sense for Elon to be on the lookout. With a short position that size, hard to tell how low some could stoop.
- cwyers 8y ago> In 2007, a comprehensive study of markets around the world found that ones where short selling was legal and common were more efficient than ones where it was not. And a 2012 study concluded simply, “Stock prices are more accurate when short sellers are more active.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/in-praise-of-short-sellers https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/in-praise-of-s... Short selling is a _good thing_. Blaming the short sellers is the practices of companies like Enron, AIG and Lehman. Elon is not covering himself in glory here.
- sunstone 8y agoPointing out that short sellers have an incentive to meddle with a company's performance is definitely fair play. Sure short selling by itself is not harmful for overall market performance but, generally, it's a lot easier for third party to affect a company's downside than their upside. That's just a fact of life.
- GreenPlastic 8y agoAgreed. In many cases, short sellers do a better job of identifying, researching, and flagging illegal behavior than government agencies charged with enforcing the rules.
- mmjaa 8y agoIts also true of long investors: they also do a better job of identifying, researching and flagging top-performing companies than government agencies charged with the task. The key thing is, motivation. Both long and short investors have motivations to cull the herd.
- erikb 8y agoI'd argue neither side is "good". It's good that we have both opposing sides. Both can be exploited for bad, but each time it happens there is an opportunity for the other side to gain something. And a smart investor certainly keeps open eyes for both directions.
- timoth3y 8y agoThis isn't good. I mean, there may well be saboteurs in Tesla. That's not my issue. What worries me is that Musk sent out a general email and announced this to the world. Why is that worrying? Whether it is Trump's "Deep State", Stalin's "wreckers", shadow governments, or Freemasons. Any time a leader starts publically pointing to invisible actors and demanding they be investigated and stopped, something is about to go very wrong. What inevitably follows is leaders asserting that their failures are not due to incompetence or poor planning on their part, but are caused unseen and irrational forces who must be opposed.
- whalesalad 8y agoYou’re really extrapolating a lot here. This was an internal memo to his staff about the incident.
- not_kurt_godel 8y agoHow is this an unseen and irrational force? It is a seen force - assuming we trust Musk in his assertion that a specific saboteur was identified and confessed to their actions, which I personally do given his overall track record - and it is a rational force given both immediate motivations (revenge for lack of promotion) and general motivations (massive extensively-documented well-funded multi-decade effort by the fossil fuel industry to thwart adoption of alternative energy). On top of that, none of this was public by virtue of it being a leaked internal email. > I mean, there may well be saboteurs in Tesla. That's not my issue. Yes, but your issue is apparently issuing proclamations about responses to saboteurs. Your stance on said issue holds little ground when you either seemingly can't be bothered to look at the basic facts or mischaracterize them to fit an agenda. So, which is it? Did you not read the article or are you being deliberately misleading?
- avs733 8y agoI'm sorry but Musk's email is ridiculous and unprofessional, and the defenses here are extremely concerning. By ArsTechnica's count this is the 5th fire in the plant. 5th. That's insane. Report after report is that things continue to not go well and the email sent out reeks of paranoia and combined with other comments made recently are quite clearly dishonest. They aren't failing at the details of ramping a manufacturing line...they are failing at the basics of running a factory. To use a restaurant analogy, he's presenting this like a giant conspiracy to throw salt in his special new desert, all the while their walkin freezer is at room temperature. It is a distraction. Here is the full email as reported by CNBC: >From: Elon Musk >To: Everybody >Subject: Some concerning news >June 17, 2018 >11:57 p.m. >I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties. >The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to so far is pretty bad. His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move. >However, there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye, so the investigation will continue in depth this week. We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any outside organizations. >As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies, the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways? >Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious. >Please be extremely vigilant, particularly over the next few weeks as we ramp up the production rate to 5k/week. This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us. >If you know of, see or suspect anything suspicious, please send a note to [email address removed for privacy] with as much info as possible. This can be done in your name, which will be kept confidential, or completely anonymously. >Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week! >Will follow this up with emails every few days describing the progress and challenges of the Model 3 ramp. >Thanks for working so hard to make Tesla successful, >Elon It is one thing to report details or a broad explanation of the incident and request vigilance. It is another entirely to speculate about the source, especially to continue to place your company as the victim of conspiracies...ESPECIALLY when IN THE SAME EMAIL you make clear that the motive had nothing to do with any of those sources. He comes off as having a serious Martyr complex. He said it was about promotion, why the speculation and the paranoia? The first 3 paragraphs are fine, they need ot be there. 4,5, and 6 look to me like planting excuses and leaking them through your employees. This email reads to me like it was written to leak. It was written to be PR sexy. I think it was written this way to get the 'sabotage' story press coverage. This is a precursor to them missing 5k again. As others have reported they may not have the permitting necessary to even paint the number of cars they are targeting. They have 3 assembly lines trying to collectively produce 5k/cars a week, something other plants do with 1. Yesterday Musk talked about the short's eating their words because the stock price blipped...and now this. Shorts aren't in it for the short haul, look at Enron, look at the housing bubble. When a spaceX rocket blew up, he claimed sabotage. He made a PR show of 'moving into the Tesla factory' why? what is he going to do? Turn a wrench? Taken individually none of these things are individually 'proof' he's losing it. Taken collectively, the preponderance of evidence is becoming increasingly damning. Occam's razor comes into play here. I've worked in big factories...I led lean task forces at two factories. All of these issues look to me like a lack of planning and an unawareness of how to execute on manufacturing mechanical things at scale. You can't rush a ramp, but you can speed it up. Getting management off the floor and getting them to empower engineers rather than manage engineers is a strong step towards it. Having the CEO living in the factory isn't anywhere in the Lean playbook that has let Toyota absolutely crush other companies in terms of manufacturing. And remember [edit: Toyota offered to help them do this and Musk burned that bridge]. Tesla's greatest enemy at this point is the cult of Elon Musk, and the cult's leader, Elon Musk.
- rich-w-big-ego 8y agoGuys. You are saying that Elon is crazy. He is not - He is taking down giants and they are angry. A NASA employee that advocated for SpaceX was sent Anthrax in the mail[1]. GM destroyed it's entire electric car fleet in 1991 because it threatened their gasoline product line[2]. 15 billion will be lost by short sellers if Elon succeeds[3]. The verdict is in. Big players will do crazy sh*t when they are threatened. And when I write this, the four top comments are suggesting Elon is crazy! What the hell is going on in Hacker News these days? There is nothing crazy about Elon being an enormous threat and that big co's are trying to crush him, any means necessary. [1] https://www.facebook.com/valleyhack/posts/653383221428617 https://www.facebook.com/valleyhack/posts/653383221428617 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1 [3] https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest
- molteanu 8y agoSearching For “Production Hell” At Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant [0] https://dailykanban.com/2018/02/searching-production-hell-fords-kentucky-truck-plant/ https://dailykanban.com/2018/02/searching-production-hell-fo...
- ballenf 8y agoThanks for posting that. Great article. I was blown away at the open access Ford grants to visitors and media at its most advanced production facility. ("Most advanced" is my assumption given that this plant produces Ford's highest margin vehicles.)
- woodandsteel 8y agoThere's something really sad about all the people who are claiming that Musk has developed deep psychological problems in recent months. Do they really think these claims are going to stop people from buying his cars, or stop big companies from hiring SpaceX to launch their satellites into orbit? Or that it will cause the megafactory to be a total failure? I think what we are seeing here is speculators who have bet deeply on Tesla's stock crashing and are about to be wiped out. They are desperately trying anything they can to undermine the company, even though they know it is very unlikely to succeed. To those who are so critical of Musk I ask, what is your prediction about how the company will be doing in 6 months or a year? And give us some specific reasons, not just some vague claims about Musk's mental state.
- FortNightLord 8y agoYou hit it on the head. It's either just not real, Musk is actually developing some issues, or people have learned to use bots (duh) to persuade public opinion (where have we heard this before??)
- mmjaa 8y agoI think the real story here is what does a person do when they've accomplished so much, that the jealousy levels around them are so damn high? I mean, I read this thread to gain some insight into what other technology/innovation people do when it comes to dealing with subterfuge and sabotage - and so far, there's nothing in this thread besides jealousy, vitriol and intolerance. Its very telling when a technologically-inclined in-group starts to eat its heroes. We truly are cannibalistic, as a species, at heart. Jealousy/envy, distrust, degradation: these seem to be far more powerful forces than sabotage and subterfuge. I wonder if there is any concerted effort to foment such? Sure seems like it.
- wedn3sday 8y agoI think TSLA is a great company that makes great products, but I also think their stock price is over valued right now. It would be a miracle if they hit the 5k cars/week target (I hope they do).
- 8y ago
- sjg007 8y agoThis doesn't make sense. If there is/was a saboteur then you would expect Musk to stay quiet until after a criminal investigation. Especially if there are alleged co-conspirators. Electric cars are a given now. The tech is proven. The AI autopilot is still open but that's a NTSB issue.
- ckastner 8y ago> Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week! This was actually the most surprising part to me -- it appears that they believe that they will actually make the 5K/week goal by the end of this quarter. As to the allegations... the email doesn't say much, but it sounds like a disgruntled employee grabbing data to me, and perhaps modifying some OS code in order to achieve that (eg: backdoor). If there had been actual, Stuxnet-style sabotage of plant machinery and the like, I would have expected the email to address this instead of leaving every employee in the dark as to why things around them are breaking.
- breakingcups 8y agoThen again, Musk knows that this email will instantly get leaked. This is PR as much as anything.
- antpls 8y agoWhat if that communication was an attempt at discovering the leak source? Maybe there is an uniquely identifiable token or wording in the original mail(s) (per division, or team). Did any one counted the spaces or looked for invisible Unicode characters?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y agoThey could also find a few places where synonyms can be substituted without sounding weird, a few places where a comma is optional or can be replaced with a dash, ... much more likely to survive a journalist doing the responsible thing and retyping the e-mail. For example: His {stated, claimed} motivation {is, was} that he {wanted a promotion that he did not receive, did not receive a promotion he wanted}. {In light of, Given} {these, his} actions, not promoting him was definitely the right {move, choice}. This can be detected by people comparing two e-mails, but the unicode trick can often be found just by looking at one of them, so I wouldn't say one is more stealthy than the other.
- jerry40 8y ago> As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die. Is it correct to use 'are' here instead of 'is'?
- jfk13 8y agoNo; "a long list" is singular.
- jerry40 8y agoThanks! I was afraid it was yet another tricky English rule.
- dri_ft 8y agoI'm not sure, but my hunch is either is OK. Compare: > There are a hundred organizations that want Tesla to die. > There is a hundred organizations that want Tesla to die.
- mbu 8y agoSecond one definitely seems wrong to me.
- mirimir 8y ago... is ... list of organizations ... ... are ... organizations ...
- ttctciyf 8y agoHow many organizations? A hundred: plural. "There are a hundred organizations.." How many lists? One: singular. "There is a list of a hundred organizations.."
- bencollier49 8y agoUK vs. US English. We (English people) say "The Football Team are playing well", for instance.
- 8y ago
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoTo me this sounds like a major violation of SOX controls. If this is the case Tesla is in deep trouble with the SEC.
- falsedan 8y ago> major violation > deep trouble Serious: no they wouldn't. Their auditor would report the compliance failure and say, try harder next year ok! Real: ah hah hahah hhaaaah hahahah ha lolll
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoWon't they need report the failure of controls to the SEC?
- falsedan 8y ago> Their auditor would report the compliance failure You have to fail multiple times, hard, before anyone gives a shit
- ericnyamu12 8y agowow.check out this cool forum http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php
- bitL 8y agoHmm, this doesn't paint rosy (immediate) future for Tesla :( Usually when CxOs start internal blaming it's the final phase...
- dayaz36 8y agoWow...I've lost all hope in HN. It's officially become worse than Reddit in terms of astroturfing. I don't know how you can take a story about someone inside Tesla sabotaging their operations and come out against Tesla in this situation, but somehow every single comment in this thread has manged to do that in different ways. "Tesla's fault for letting this happened!" "It's just an excuse for production delays!" "Elon's paranoid!" "Conspiracy theorist!" "Blaming short sellers is what Enron did! Leave the poor short sellers alone!" I don't trust anything I read on HN anymore. Alright bots, now down vote me into oblivion where all the pro-Tesla comments end up.
- Rapzid 8y agoLeft and right extremism seems to be taking over the conversation worldwide these days. It's creeping in everywhere. What is most scary is that it is likely going to have to get much worse before it gets better.. Somebody posted this and it about sums it all up: John Cleese vs Extremism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4 .
- wilsonnb2 8y agoWhy do you assume it's astroturfing? In my opinion, a lot of people just don't like Tesla or Elon Musk. It's dangerous to assume that everyone who disagrees with you on the internet is a bot.
- plmkijnhyt 8y agothis is a very nice forum,check it out https://www.bit.ly/2M0hqJa https://www.bit.ly/2M0hqJa
- Biba 8y agoYeah right, first employee sabotages them and another employee shares email from Elon to public. And choose CNBC. Someone needs to lower the stock price.
- 42434324234234 8y agothis is a very nice forum,check it out https://www.bit.ly/2M0hqJa https://www.bit.ly/2M0hqJa
- shafyy 8y agoShorting should be illegal.
- rdl 8y agoMusk has every incentive to play up this incident, as long as it's concluded. A single bad event in the past can now be used to explain any number of problems. I trust him enough to believe there's a kernel of truth here, but the degree to which the sabotage actually affected operations is going to be presented in the greatest possible light.
- jacques_chester 8y agoCodename: Snowball.
- ll2 8y agoAnimal Farm? Napoleon calls Squealer a saboteur after he ousted him.
- erikb 8y agoI can't really put my finger on why, but this looks like a quite stupid move. Usually in such situations this person gets fired and sued and then the top management tries to put silence over that topic. An email to the whole staff is the opposite of that and makes me wonder if Elon tries to cover some own missteps. Any hints in that direction?
- voodooranger 8y agoThe code review systems I’m familiar with give you the opportunity to submit code that’s different than what was approved. The assumption in these systems is that the developer is acting in good faith.
- otabdeveloper1 8y agoA dog-ate-my-homework tier excuse, from Elon Musk? What can I say, except "lol".
- devit 8y agoPerhaps they should have better security measures? If I understand correctly, Tesla cars can be updated OTA including critical functions, so someone who manages to insert a malicious software update might be able to kill everyone driving a Tesla at some moment, plus numerous bystanders.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- coatmatter 8y agoLanguage nitpick: I think you mean anyone, not everyone.
- rahilb 8y agoDoesn't it make sense for Elon himself to be holding a sizeable short position? Presumably he'd like to hedge his large Tesla holding?
- nblavoie 8y agoI don't want to be the conspiracy guy, but if I read the email the opposite way, I found out that the message is the sabotage first (yes), but the second point about ramping up the production to 5k is the second subject. I'm asking the question if this email could be a stunt to inform the investors their production state, to inform about the delays, etc. ? Simply wondering.
- sp332 8y ago5k/week was already the goal. He's just reassuring investors that it hasn't changed. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/tesla-delivers-1550-model-3s-in-q4-says-it-wont-hit-5k-per-week-next-quarter/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/tesla-delivers-1550-mod...
- nblavoie 8y agoIndeed. But I sense a more subtle message in this email than the sabotage. Don't you feel it ? It is purely subjective.
- coatmatter 8y agoI very often notice how Musk will write or tweet in an ambiguous enough way that most people will read different messages out of him. My own speculation is that he does this intentionally not to lie, but to catch people out with "gotchas". It's a hedge against both failure and success. I caution against over-interpreting anything he says until the details are made very specific. An aside for example, one time I told a customer "I'll see what I can do" - what they heard though was closer to "ok I'll sort it out for you", and weren't too pleased when later on we weren't able to resolve it in time for them.
- bhouston 8y agoIsn't this the plot in one of the episodes of Billions? If you are short a stock and a billion dollars is on the line, there are people you can pay who will "ensure" that a company fails and you win your B+ bet.
- coatmatter 8y agoI believe it's a plotline in any film or TV series featuring gangs or mobs.
- endblue18 8y agohttps://gate.blue https://gate.blue can't hack. can't hack. can't hack.
- endblue18 8y agohttps://gate.blue https://gate.blue can't hack.
- pwaivers 8y ago"His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move." Haha
- kchr 8y agoWhat are the chances of this being FUD pushed by Musk to cover up for failing to meet expected deliveries and/or possibly other obstacles Tesla's been hitting recently?
- xb222 8y agoWho censored a whole subthread?
- hateful 8y agoFrom: Elon Musk To: Everybody Subject: Some concerning news June 17, 2018 11:57 p.m. I can't stand it, I know you planned it I'mma set it straight, this Watergate I can't stand rockin' when I'm in here 'Cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear So while you sit back and wonder why I got this fuckin' thorn in my side Oh my god, it's a mirage I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage So, so, so, so listen up, 'cause you can't say nothin' You'll shut me down with a push of your button But, yo, I'm out and I'm gone I'll tell you now, I keep it on and on 'Cause what you see, you might not get And we can bet, so don't you get souped yet Scheming on a thing, that's a mirage I'm trying to tell you now, it's sabotage Why Our backs are now against the wall Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage I can't stand it, I know you planned it I'mma set it straight, this Watergate But I can't stand rockin' when I'm in this place Because I feel disgrace because you're all in my face But make no mistakes and switch up my channel I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle What could it be, it's a mirage You're scheming on a thing, that's sabotage Thanks for working so hard to make Tesla successful, Elon
- therealdrag0 8y agoI don't get it.
- eindiran 8y agoI think OP took the email and replaced the body with lyrics from Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-sabotage-lyrics https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-sabotage-lyrics