Former Tesla employee Martin Tripp will pay an American electric car manufacturer $ 400,000 for disclosing classified information related to trade secrets while working for the company, writes Bloomberg .
Tripp was an engineer at Gigafactory from 2017 to 2018. While working for the company, he secretly contacted reporters and told them that Elon Musk’s company would not be able to meet the publicly stated goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 electric vehicles per week. He also stated that Tesla is using defective batteries in its production. As a result, the company’s shares fell.
Tesla accused Tripp of revenge for being denied a promotion and fired the employee. After that, the company sued the engineer, demanding to recover $ 167 million from him. As a result of the proceedings, the amount was reduced to 400 thousand dollars.
Tripp, for his part, said that he went to the disclosure of information because he was worried about the safety of future Tesla owners. He filed a defamation counterclaim, accusing the company of, among other things, non-compliance with environmental requirements. Tripp claimed $ 1 million in compensation, but his claim was eventually dismissed.