8 ms·

Tesla Tripp Police Report Released

111 points by moomin 7y ago

rdiddly 7y ago
"Little birds sing?" WTF is that, we're in the Mafia now? I'd call it self-aggrandizement by (I can't help but imitate the capitalization) GOUTHRO, were it not for the fact that they are apparently using literal mob-style intimidation tactics, now to include this SWATting attempt. Filing a false police report is a crime and so is retaliation against a whistleblower.
AndrewBissell 7y ago
Many of these details, along with other extraordinarily shady activities on the part of Tesla, came out in a longform Bloomberg article earlier this year: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...
navd 7y ago
Ehhhh it’s hard to say if there’s really even a story here. Seems like some sensationalism going on.
exhilaration 7y ago
Whenever you see $TSLA in the title of things like this you can safely assume it's being publicized by someone trying to manipulate the stock price and therefore take it with a very big grain of salt.
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  The linked tweet is nothing more or less than a direct dump of a police department's response to a FOIA request, along with the remark "it's stunning." Is your thesis that the police want to help drive down Tesla stock?
leoh 7y ago
It's distressing that every time something negative about Tesla comes out, there is a knee-jerk reaction like "this is merely a ploy to manipulate the stock or destroy the company." Yes, news agencies are often wrong. And yes, there are occasionally manipulators. And although Tesla might be doing great work, it is unquestionable that they may, at times, be causing significant harm to individuals. To dismiss the potential of Tesla's wrongdoing immediately and out of hand feels deeply cult-like to me.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > "this is merely a ploy to manipulate the stock or destroy the company." Well, the most favorable thing you could say about $TSLA is that Musk hasn't managed to destroy the company, in spite of his well-known and recurring antics.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Given that they’re currently producing over 90,000 cars per quarter, and that their products have consistently been the benchmark EV for eight years, I think there are plenty of other favourable things you could say about them? I’m not remotely a fanboy of that company but your comment does seem to be out of whack with the scale of their success despite gargantuan odds.
    - new_realist 7y ago
      “They sell more EVs than anyone else, because they are willing to lose more money than anyone else” is perhaps the most charitable thing I could say. I believe they’ve gone through about $20B in cash and lost $6.5B of it. “Not quite the WeWork of cars” is another.
      - nikofeyn 7y ago
        they don’t sell anywhere close to “more EVs than anyone else”.
tomjakubowski 7y ago
Headline (and the tweet) is inaccurate. Tripp's attorneys posted the police report in 2018. https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/tesla-related-police-reports/ https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/tesla-related-polic... https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Police-Reports-highlighted.pdf https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/wp-content/uploads/...
Voloskaya 7y ago
I don't get what is "stunning" here? Maybe I am missing some context? Someone called Tesla to advise that Tripp was heavily armed and coming at the Gigafactory. Tesla called the police, which then looked for Tripp and found the information to be false. Subsequently, the police tried to identify who placed the initial call, and found that the caller was just "a concerned friend", as they knew Tripp to be unstable and shaken by his firing from Tesla and thus concerned he could do something like that. Ultimately from the report we don't know who placed the call, either it is indeed from a "concerned friend" and there is nothing interesting happening here. Or it is from someone from Tesla trying to harass Tripp as a payback for his leaks, as I have seen suggested on twitter, however nothing in the report even alludes to that, so what am I missing?
- youngtaff 7y ago
  Tesla's Head of Investigations told the police they were able to verify that he was armed, but he wasn't armed so looks like someone somewhere is not telling the truth
- leoh 7y ago
  This is a reasonable, yet generous reading of the situation. But the situation stinks. Tripp raised what seemed to be sincere concerns, yet was retaliated against by Tesla in an exceedingly heavy-handed manner. Tesla's current claim is that he caused them over 100 million dollars in damage. The trouble in my mind is that Tesla escalated and has continued to escalate an incredibly unpleasant situation involving Tripp. This situation, and others, seem to strongly suggest that company that runs deeply on principles of fear, going so far as to use incredible amounts of energy on going after a low-level engineer with a possibly reasonable complaint. A more enlightened response from Tesla, in my mind, had the complaints by Tripp been untrue, would have been to have been to quietly dismiss him, address his claims in a press release, and use gentle language to address him, identifying him, sincerely, if possible, as a genuinely useful member of the team with whom Tesla had an irreconcilable disagreement. Tesla is not taking this route, however. Their handling of the situation suggests that they may have something more serious to hide or, at minimum, that they are not committed to deeper humanistic means of engaging with individuals that challenge them (though Musk must not be exclusively defined by this, is it so surprising given the terrible names he called one of the Thai rescuers?). Tesla has and are continues to attend to Tripp with tremendous force (legal, and perhaps otherwise -- as suggested by this link) as opposed to just moving on and letting things be. They are proactively seeking to proactively discredit and arguably harm Tripp as opposed to contending with his contentions head on.
stopadvertising 7y ago
Musk and the head of Tesla security should be arrested for false reporting. This is upsetting that billionaires can get away with this type of thing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

111 points by moomin 7y ago

"Little birds sing?" WTF is that, we're in the Mafia now? I'd call it self-aggrandizement by (I can't help but imitate the capitalization) GOUTHRO, were it not for the fact that they are apparently using literal mob-style intimidation tactics, now to include this SWATting attempt. Filing a false police report is a crime and so is retaliation against a whistleblower.

AndrewBissell 7y ago

Many of these details, along with other extraordinarily shady activities on the part of Tesla, came out in a longform Bloomberg article earlier this year: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

navd 7y ago

Ehhhh it’s hard to say if there’s really even a story here. Seems like some sensationalism going on.

exhilaration 7y ago

Whenever you see $TSLA in the title of things like this you can safely assume it's being publicized by someone trying to manipulate the stock price and therefore take it with a very big grain of salt.

AndrewBissell 7y ago
The linked tweet is nothing more or less than a direct dump of a police department's response to a FOIA request, along with the remark "it's stunning." Is your thesis that the police want to help drive down Tesla stock?

leoh 7y ago

It's distressing that every time something negative about Tesla comes out, there is a knee-jerk reaction like "this is merely a ploy to manipulate the stock or destroy the company." Yes, news agencies are often wrong. And yes, there are occasionally manipulators. And although Tesla might be doing great work, it is unquestionable that they may, at times, be causing significant harm to individuals. To dismiss the potential of Tesla's wrongdoing immediately and out of hand feels deeply cult-like to me.

zozbot234 7y ago
> "this is merely a ploy to manipulate the stock or destroy the company." Well, the most favorable thing you could say about $TSLA is that Musk hasn't managed to destroy the company, in spite of his well-known and recurring antics.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Given that they’re currently producing over 90,000 cars per quarter, and that their products have consistently been the benchmark EV for eight years, I think there are plenty of other favourable things you could say about them? I’m not remotely a fanboy of that company but your comment does seem to be out of whack with the scale of their success despite gargantuan odds.
  - new_realist 7y ago
    “They sell more EVs than anyone else, because they are willing to lose more money than anyone else” is perhaps the most charitable thing I could say. I believe they’ve gone through about $20B in cash and lost $6.5B of it. “Not quite the WeWork of cars” is another.
    - nikofeyn 7y ago
      they don’t sell anywhere close to “more EVs than anyone else”.

tomjakubowski 7y ago

Headline (and the tweet) is inaccurate. Tripp's attorneys posted the police report in 2018. https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/tesla-related-police-reports/ https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/tesla-related-polic... https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Police-Reports-highlighted.pdf https://www.secwhistleblowerattorney.net/wp-content/uploads/...

Voloskaya 7y ago

I don't get what is "stunning" here? Maybe I am missing some context? Someone called Tesla to advise that Tripp was heavily armed and coming at the Gigafactory. Tesla called the police, which then looked for Tripp and found the information to be false. Subsequently, the police tried to identify who placed the initial call, and found that the caller was just "a concerned friend", as they knew Tripp to be unstable and shaken by his firing from Tesla and thus concerned he could do something like that. Ultimately from the report we don't know who placed the call, either it is indeed from a "concerned friend" and there is nothing interesting happening here. Or it is from someone from Tesla trying to harass Tripp as a payback for his leaks, as I have seen suggested on twitter, however nothing in the report even alludes to that, so what am I missing?

youngtaff 7y ago
Tesla's Head of Investigations told the police they were able to verify that he was armed, but he wasn't armed so looks like someone somewhere is not telling the truth
leoh 7y ago
This is a reasonable, yet generous reading of the situation. But the situation stinks. Tripp raised what seemed to be sincere concerns, yet was retaliated against by Tesla in an exceedingly heavy-handed manner. Tesla's current claim is that he caused them over 100 million dollars in damage. The trouble in my mind is that Tesla escalated and has continued to escalate an incredibly unpleasant situation involving Tripp. This situation, and others, seem to strongly suggest that company that runs deeply on principles of fear, going so far as to use incredible amounts of energy on going after a low-level engineer with a possibly reasonable complaint. A more enlightened response from Tesla, in my mind, had the complaints by Tripp been untrue, would have been to have been to quietly dismiss him, address his claims in a press release, and use gentle language to address him, identifying him, sincerely, if possible, as a genuinely useful member of the team with whom Tesla had an irreconcilable disagreement. Tesla is not taking this route, however. Their handling of the situation suggests that they may have something more serious to hide or, at minimum, that they are not committed to deeper humanistic means of engaging with individuals that challenge them (though Musk must not be exclusively defined by this, is it so surprising given the terrible names he called one of the Thai rescuers?). Tesla has and are continues to attend to Tripp with tremendous force (legal, and perhaps otherwise -- as suggested by this link) as opposed to just moving on and letting things be. They are proactively seeking to proactively discredit and arguably harm Tripp as opposed to contending with his contentions head on.

stopadvertising 7y ago

Musk and the head of Tesla security should be arrested for false reporting. This is upsetting that billionaires can get away with this type of thing.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]