Tesla sues former employee as Elon Musk signals hunt for saboteurs

Tesla sued a former employee Wednesday for allegedly hacking the automaker's computer systems and stealing company secrets, shedding light on what chief Elon Musk had suggested was the work of a secretive internal saboteur. Tesla attorneys wrote in their lawsuit that Martin Tripp, a former technician at the company's Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada, wrote software to aid in an elaborate theft of several gigabytes of confidential data, including photos and video of Tesla's manufacturing systems. The firm's attorneys said Tripp worked at Tesla from October to last week, when company investigators confronted him with evidence. Tripp, attorneys wrote, also gave journalists false information about the company, including claims that defective batteries had been used in Tesla's Model 3 sedans. The court file did not name an attorney for Tripp, who could not be located.