Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is facing lawsuits in two separate cases from employees who claim to be whistleblowers. The first case pertains to a former Tesla employee who has hit back after being accused of sabotage and the second one relates to three employees, who previously worked for Tesla’s subsidiary SolarCity and who claim they were dismissed for exposing unethical practices. Tesla has refuted all the allegations.
In June, Martin Tripp, a technician at Tesla, was accused by the company of stealing and disclosing confidential information to unauthorized third parties. Tesla filed a lawsuit against the former employee, who hit back with a counter-claim accusing Tesla of unsafe and reckless business practices. Tripp says he decided to expose Tesla’s actions because they were harmful to the environment and raised safety concerns.
Tripp is suing the company for at least $1 million on grounds of defamation, invasion of privacy and for causing emotional distress. He has also accused Musk of raising false allegations of bribery against him through a tweet.
Tesla said that it conducted a thorough inquiry into these matters and found no base to these charges
The second lawsuit against Elon Musk was filed by three ex-employees of SolarCity who said they were wrongfully terminated after they uncovered false sales accounts used to fudge the company’s valuation and defend certain bonus payments. They said they brought the issue to the management’s notice but ended up being dismissed early last year.
Tesla said that it conducted a thorough inquiry into these matters and found no base to these charges.
Tesla shares were trading down 0.5% at 11:45AM ET. The company is set to report earnings aftermarket today.