Tesla employee is fired for 'maliciously sabotaging' part of a factory and destroying a company computer at the company's Fremont auto plant, internal memo reveals
Tesla announced Tuesday that an employee was fired last month after he 'maliciously sabotaged' a part of a factory in Fremont, California.
Al Prescott, Tesla's vice president of legal and acting general counsel, sent a memo about the incident to Tesla employees at the Fremont auto plant.
According to the email, which was obtained by Bloomberg News, Tesla officials responded to the alleged incident rapidly.
Tesla announced Tuesday that an employee was fired last month after he 'maliciously sabotaged' a part of a factory in Fremont, California
Operations at the facility were disrupted briefly, Prescott said in the email.
'Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than [sic] an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory,' Prescott wrote in the email.
'Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later.'
Tesla has not identified the individual who allegedly tried to 'cover up his tracks' by blaming another co-worker.
The individual is said to have destroyed a company computer during the incident.
'Ultimately, after being shown the irrefutable evidence, the employee confessed. As a result, we terminated employment,' the email reads, according to Bloomberg.
Tesla cars are loaded onto carriers at the Tesla electric car plant in Fremont, California
In the email, Prescott said that the company will not tolerate unethical behavior.
'We place tremendous trust in our employees and value everyone's contribution. However, whatever the personal motivations of the attacker were, these are crimes, violations of our code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees,' Prescott wrote.
'We will take aggressive action to defend the company and our people.'
Tesla employs more than 10,000 people at the Fremont auto plant. The company makes the S, X, 3 and Y models in Fremont.
Just last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company's Nevada factory was targeted in a cyberattack by a Russian tourist.
The FBI arrested Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27, who investigators say offered a Tesla employee $1million to infect company computers with malware in a scheme to steal data and extort payment from the company.
Kriuchkov was federally charged with conspiracy to damage a protected computer, after the Tesla employee alerted the company and the FBI.
