
Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee - yasp
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html
======
flyingswift
I made this same comment on the other discussion.

I find it concerning that one person was able to push malicious code to
'production'. To me, this suggests that Tesla, a company building highly
sensitive software, does not employ basic branch policies. How is is it that
these changes could have made it through a code review process and get
deployed?

If a company like Microsoft or Google announced that a disgruntled employee
was able to push some code that, say, stole user information, I think the
general reaction would be "why was this allowed to happen?" I'm not sure why
Tesla gets a pass in this regard

~~~
cottsak
This is a very naive comment. There will always be a small handful of
engineers that can push the button to move code into PROD or even change code
in PROD live. Ideally, with mature controls, the people in this list is short.
But to jump to the conclusion that Tesla doesn't use good practises is very
short sighted. Who's to say that external parties didn't target this person
specifically because of their role/influence.

~~~
alxlaz
Obviously, not all details are available, but the wording in the email
suggests that the parent comment is anything but naive:

> This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing
> Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly
> sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.

This sounds like something out of the 1990s, that dark and romantic era of
version control when we thought CVS was pretty cool actually and we didn't
know what key-based authentication and 2FA were.

There are volunteer-ran projects that don't have this problem.

Edit: to be clear, I presume no one is debating the fact that someone with
high enough credentials can push code to production. The questions that the
email raises are:

1\. Why can _anyone_ , regardless of credentials, push mission-critical code
without review (or, alternatively, if the changes did go through review, why
did the review process not catch _multiple_ malicious changes?)

2\. Why can someone compromise _several_ high-level credentials without anyone
figuring it out (the changes were made, apparently, under "false usernames")?

~~~
daemin
Some manager asks IT multiple times over the course of a few weeks to create
an account for a contractor, then give them permissions to access production
type machines.

Or a contractor that was fired had their credentials appropriated by this
manager, perhaps by that manager removing them from a "delete these accounts"
list.

Those are a couple of mundane ways of getting a false username to a production
machine. This is even easier when there is a lot of flux at the company with
many people coming and going, a lot of account management happening etc.

It could have been that the accounts were local to specific machines and not
managed by the company as a whole.

~~~
alxlaz
> Some manager asks IT multiple times over the course of a few weeks to create
> an account for a contractor, then give them permissions to access production
> type machines.

And -- keeping in mind that production type machines operate machinery that
can kill -- this sounds okay to you?

Not to mention this:

> Or a contractor that was fired had their credentials appropriated by this
> manager, perhaps by that manager removing them from a "delete these
> accounts" list.

...keeping in mind that production type machines operate machinery that can
kill, does it sound OK to you that _anyone_ can get access to an account that
they don't own and control it?

This particular case would be enough to have PCI certification come into
question (if not for it to be revoked), and that's just about money, not life-
and-death stuff.

~~~
daemin
Someone has to be responsible for managing people and organising access to the
appropriate machines for them to do their job, if it isn't their manager then
who is?

~~~
alxlaz
You can manage people and organize access without actually having the ability
to gain access to their credentials. In fact, that's how it's _supposed_ to
work in safety-critical environments.

~~~
softawre
This is how it works in normal software companies too. I never see the
credentials for my employees.

~~~
daemin
My point is, as a manager one can request that their subordinates get
credentials to access systems. Therefore as a manager you could create a
fictitious person (or use one that's recently left the company), and have them
be given credentials to access those systems. Then you could use that
fictional identity to do whatever nefarious things you want to do.

Then again it could be just as simple to create an alternate fictitious
identity without going through IT but just by accessing the systems you have
permission to access anyway.

~~~
alxlaz
In a normal company, _you could absolutely not_ create a fictitious account
that way, or re-use the credentials of someone who just left. But more
important, there is a very, very long way from having created a fictitious
person to being able to push stuff to production in their name.

The former restriction is maybe difficult enough to efficiently implement in
an organization that it's excusable (we have a scheme for it at $work, but it
unfortunately means that sometimes people show up at work and the paperwork
isn't ready yet and some of the accounts they need aren't yet ready).

The latter, on the other hand, is security 101 and not implementing it on the
production floor is just irresponsible. I really hope it's not what happened.

~~~
daemin
So what are the odds then that they created a new user account on some local
machine and used that to make the changes?

~~~
alxlaz
If we're talking about changes to the software that's used to manufactures
vehicles that are driving on public roads, I sure as hell hope the odds are
zero.

~~~
daemin
I hope so too, but then again we constantly read stories where serious
industrial equipment and critical infrastructure has their computer systems
opened up to the wide Internet because someone thought they would like to
control it from a crappy app on their phone. Etc.

------
twblalock
I have no problem believing that a disgruntled employee sabotaged part of the
production line. But I do have a problem believing that all of the problems
since the Model 3 started production were caused by sabotage.

I also have no problem believing that the disgruntled employee simply wanted
to take revenge by sabotaging his/her employer -- that's not uncommon, and it
should not be difficult to prove if it really happened. Musk is going a bit
too far in suggesting that other forces are involved unless he has credible
evidence, and he should share it if he has it.

~~~
jccooper
> But I do have a problem believing that all of the problems since the Model 3
> started production were caused by sabotage.

So, uh, where exactly is that said? In the email, or anywhere for that matter?
On my monitor, the email doesn't claim _any_ influence on Model 3 production
problems, much less "all".

> suggesting that other forces are involved

"Investigation" and "be extremely vigilant" are a mite different from
"suggesting".

You might want to consider talking about what is actually written.

~~~
twblalock
> You might want to consider talking about what is actually written.

You might want to consider that the author knows full well that the
implication is what really matters, and that people who only think about the
literal written words are missing the point.

~~~
crististm
There is also the case that filling too much between the lines is in danger of
driving its own narrative.

------
omarforgotpwd
Everyone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He gave very
specific examples of things this person did. If you were someone with a large
position against Telsa, or a competing manufacturer, or an oil / gas company
finally picking things up after a terrible oil price collapse, yeah maybe it
makes sense to go mess things up subtly enough that the company slips a little
bit closer to bankruptcy? I'm not saying I 100% believe this theory, but when
you're working at this level as CEO I feel like you have to at least consider
the possibility.

~~~
jcranmer
From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio
is extremely high. To claim that someone is trying to do so is an
extraordinary claim, and we all know the saying about extraordinary claims...

~~~
FortNightLord
Uh it says the guy admitted to it...and gave reasons...a confession is more
than enough evidence.

~~~
olivermarks
People at Tesla are working incredibly hard, they just had a FTE mass layoff
and are relying heavily on 'associates'. This reminds me of the darker days at
Zappos with their holocracy business model and all powerful vanity CEO. It's
not hard to imagine the disgruntled moving fast and breaking things in
frustration

~~~
d0mine
s/holocracy/holAcracy/

~~~
gota
I wish I saw this before taking to google and becoming disappointed that no
hierarchy based on holograms exists

------
cwyers
> In 2007, a comprehensive study of markets around the world found that ones
> where short selling was legal and common were more efficient than ones where
> it was not. And a 2012 study concluded simply, “Stock prices are more
> accurate when short sellers are more active.”

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/in-praise-
of-s...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/in-praise-of-short-
sellers)

Short selling is a _good thing_. Blaming the short sellers is the practices of
companies like Enron, AIG and Lehman. Elon is not covering himself in glory
here.

~~~
GreenPlastic
Agreed. In many cases, short sellers do a better job of identifying,
researching, and flagging illegal behavior than government agencies charged
with enforcing the rules.

~~~
mmjaa
Its also true of long investors: they also do a better job of identifying,
researching and flagging top-performing companies than government agencies
charged with the task.

The key thing is, motivation. Both long and short investors have motivations
to cull the herd.

------
coldnose
I concede it's possible that saboteurs are operating within Tesla, but lashing
out at invisible enemies sends a strong "crazy" signal. Elon has been sending
a lot of crazy signals lately...

~~~
naikrovek
Well the email said that the guy admitted to it, and did it because he was
denied a promotion.

Not so invisible.

~~~
Maybestring
The boogyman isn't the sabeteur, it's the mysterious cabal of oil barons and
short sellers that put him up to it.

~~~
JoshCole
I think the boogeyman is whoever the guy was exporting data too, since they
found data exportation features. Because why have data exportation unless you
are doing it _too_ somewhere.

~~~
thecatspaw
I read "exporting data" as "took home a sql dump and now plans to sell email
and related data on the darknet". Standard small blackhat stuff, not
industrial espionage, but I doubt tesla will publicly say what happened in
this case

------
ckastner
> Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super
> exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week!

This was actually the most surprising part to me -- it appears that they
believe that they will actually make the 5K/week goal by the end of this
quarter.

As to the allegations... the email doesn't say much, but it sounds like a
disgruntled employee grabbing data to me, and perhaps modifying some OS code
in order to achieve that (eg: backdoor).

If there had been actual, Stuxnet-style sabotage of plant machinery and the
like, I would have expected the email to address this instead of leaving every
employee in the dark as to why things around them are breaking.

~~~
breakingcups
Then again, Musk knows that this email will instantly get leaked. This is PR
as much as anything.

~~~
antpls
What if that communication was an attempt at discovering the leak source?
Maybe there is an uniquely identifiable token or wording in the original
mail(s) (per division, or team). Did any one counted the spaces or looked for
invisible Unicode characters?

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
They could also find a few places where synonyms can be substituted without
sounding weird, a few places where a comma is optional or can be replaced with
a dash, ... much more likely to survive a journalist doing the responsible
thing and retyping the e-mail.

For example:

His {stated, claimed} motivation {is, was} that he {wanted a promotion that he
did not receive, did not receive a promotion he wanted}. {In light of, Given}
{these, his} actions, not promoting him was definitely the right {move,
choice}.

This can be detected by people comparing two e-mails, but the unicode trick
can often be found just by looking at one of them, so I wouldn't say one is
more stealthy than the other.

------
0x4f3759df
There's $10B in TSLA short positions, when the numbers get this big its not
unthinkable.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _There 's $10B in TSLA short positions, when the numbers get this big its
> not unthinkable_

Yes, it's unthinkable. If a $10 billion short were to even marginally pay off,
regulators would dig deep. Anyone with that kind of cash on hand is savvy
enough to know that. Sabotaging a visible company, with lots of stockholders
and lenders and bankers standing to benefit from the company's success, to pay
off a short is something that sounds plausible in fiction but is boneheadedly
moronic in real life.

~~~
gamblor956
Why would they dig deep? Tesla has had many documented, self-inflicted
execution issues with nearly every single one of its mass-produced cars.
Tesla's done far more damage to itself than a single saboteur ever could.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Why would they dig deep?_

Whenever an outsized high-risk position pays off, multiple regulators--at the
SRO, state and federal levels--investigate. Mostly for insider trading.
Sometimes in response to investor complaints or broker arbitration
proceedings.

These are well-paid professionals at the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, state financial
services regulators, Federal Reserve, OCC, Treasury, and a bajillion other
acronym agencies. Some of them are there while they wait for something better
in industry. Many eye an administration appointment or political office. These
are motivated people with comprehensive data across multiple markets, all tied
to the natural persons behind accounts.

Corollary: One will notice that most insider trading busts happen to mid-level
employees at publicly-traded companies. _Not_ traders or hedge fund managers.
A large part of this comes down to the general public having no idea how
competent securities regulators are. So while someone in the industry would
never _e.g._ text about insider trading before buying out of the money options
in a relative's name, Midwestern CFO's daughter sees nothing risky about that.

~~~
BurritoAlPastor
I don't think "outsized" is a factor here. How invested is the plurality
shorter here? Maybe $10 million? One-thousandth, even one-hundredth, of a
market position doesn't sound like an "outsized" investment to me.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I don 't think "outsized" is a factor here_

I originally criticized the notion of a short seller sabotaging Tesla to make
money. The moment you reach the scale where it makes sense, it also becomes
easily discoverable.

------
minimaxir
> This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing
> Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly
> sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.

How do "false usernames" work in a modern development environment where all
commits are tied to a single real-world user?

~~~
tlb
With a vanilla git configuration, it's as easy as:

    
    
      $ vi centrifuge_rpm_controller.cc
      $ git commit --author "Bob Goodguy <bob@tesla.com>" -a -m "Totally harmless changes"
      $ git push
    

In a high-stakes environment, it's probably worth signing commits.
[https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work](https://git-
scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work)

~~~
flyingswift
Are we really saying that Tesla, a company building highly sensitive software,
is not employing basic branch policies? How is it that these changes could
have made it through a code review process and deployed to 'production'?

What I take away from this is that one malicious actor was able to single
handedly deploy malicious code and that there were no processes in place to
stop this. That is a far more worrying issue

~~~
giarc
Not sure if it changes your point at all, but the changes were to the
manufacturing operating system, not the car OS. I'm not familiar with
manufacturing but I imagine there are a ton of different systems and perhaps
not all are as secure as the other. I recall reading they needed some paint
improvements, so perhaps they changed something there. I don't imagine they
would have software controlling paint totally locked down.

~~~
gregpilling
Most manufacturing machines run G-code. Simply changing one of the G-code
values (text editing) would cause the machine to make parts incorrectly, and
this would screw up things down the line.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code)

on my Haas mill, the code is directly editable by the operator. On my robots,
the code is 'taught' by moving the arm and telling the machine that the new
location is the updated. It is routine to have to adjust minor things in the
robots, the operator would have to have access to do their job.

I had a welder put a washer under a sensor on my robot one time, making every
weld 1 mm in the wrong spot. We couldn't figure it out and ended up
reprogramming the entire setup, 8 hours, to fix it. A week later I noticed the
washer, put there by a guy who I fired for bad attitude a week before. Once I
had found the washer, I had the choice of going back to the old code, or
leaving it with the new code.

I left it with the new code. I didn't have another 8 hours to waste to fix the
fix.

Even tiny companies like mine can have sabotage. Why not Tesla?

------
voodooranger
The code review systems I’m familiar with give you the opportunity to submit
code that’s different than what was approved. The assumption in these systems
is that the developer is acting in good faith.

------
patrickg_zill
What I hope is that proper forensics was done so that this can be verified in
some way by a third party.

I'll let people more familiar with security auditing and forensics weigh in on
exactly how this should be done.

------
woodandsteel
There's something really sad about all the people who are claiming that Musk
has developed deep psychological problems in recent months.

Do they really think these claims are going to stop people from buying his
cars, or stop big companies from hiring SpaceX to launch their satellites into
orbit? Or that it will cause the megafactory to be a total failure?

I think what we are seeing here is speculators who have bet deeply on Tesla's
stock crashing and are about to be wiped out. They are desperately trying
anything they can to undermine the company, even though they know it is very
unlikely to succeed.

To those who are so critical of Musk I ask, what is your prediction about how
the company will be doing in 6 months or a year? And give us some specific
reasons, not just some vague claims about Musk's mental state.

~~~
Tomte
Prediction: they will raise new capital.

Because if not, prediction 2: bankruptcy at the end of the year.

Reasons: widely reported ginancial status of Tesla, based on official
publications.

~~~
coatmatter
What if Musk supplied the required capital himself?

------
devit
Perhaps they should have better security measures?

If I understand correctly, Tesla cars can be updated OTA including critical
functions, so someone who manages to insert a malicious software update might
be able to kill everyone driving a Tesla at some moment, plus numerous
bystanders.

~~~
coatmatter
Language nitpick: I think you mean _anyone_ , not everyone.

------
dokein
Hard to judge whether this is true, but with billions of dollars in play I
wouldn’t put it past human nature to do something immoral.

~~~
stephengillie
It's enough money to make someone amplify global warming concerns in the
media. Then, every news article about climate change - and even very hot days
- become an advertisement for the product.

------
avs733
I'm sorry but Musk's email is ridiculous and unprofessional, and the defenses
here are extremely concerning.

By ArsTechnica's count this is the 5th fire in the plant. 5th. That's insane.
Report after report is that things continue to not go well and the email sent
out reeks of paranoia and combined with other comments made recently are quite
clearly dishonest. They aren't failing at the details of ramping a
manufacturing line...they are failing at the basics of running a factory. To
use a restaurant analogy, he's presenting this like a giant conspiracy to
throw salt in his special new desert, all the while their walkin freezer is at
room temperature. It is a distraction.

Here is the full email as reported by CNBC:

>From: Elon Musk

>To: Everybody

>Subject: Some concerning news

>June 17, 2018

>11:57 p.m.

>I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted
quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations. This included making
direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false
usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to
unknown third parties.

>The full extent of his actions are not yet clear, but what he has admitted to
so far is pretty bad. His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that
he did not receive. In light of these actions, not promoting him was
definitely the right move.

>However, there may be considerably more to this situation than meets the eye,
so the investigation will continue in depth this week. We need to figure out
if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if he was working with any
outside organizations.

>As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die.
These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of
dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies,
the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla
advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your
mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then
there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're
willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in
other ways?

>Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential
information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is
something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at
the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious.

>Please be extremely vigilant, particularly over the next few weeks as we ramp
up the production rate to 5k/week. This is when outside forces have the
strongest motivation to stop us.

>If you know of, see or suspect anything suspicious, please send a note to
[email address removed for privacy] with as much info as possible. This can be
done in your name, which will be kept confidential, or completely anonymously.

>Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super
exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week!

>Will follow this up with emails every few days describing the progress and
challenges of the Model 3 ramp.

>Thanks for working so hard to make Tesla successful,

>Elon

It is one thing to report details or a broad explanation of the incident and
request vigilance. It is another entirely to speculate about the source,
especially to continue to place your company as the victim of
conspiracies...ESPECIALLY when IN THE SAME EMAIL you make clear that the
motive had nothing to do with any of those sources. He comes off as having a
serious Martyr complex.

He said it was about promotion, why the speculation and the paranoia? The
first 3 paragraphs are fine, they need ot be there. 4,5, and 6 look to me like
planting excuses and leaking them through your employees. This email reads to
me like it was written to leak. It was written to be PR sexy. I think it was
written this way to get the 'sabotage' story press coverage.

This is a precursor to them missing 5k again. As others have reported they may
not have the permitting necessary to even paint the number of cars they are
targeting. They have 3 assembly lines trying to collectively produce 5k/cars a
week, something other plants do with 1. Yesterday Musk talked about the
short's eating their words because the stock price blipped...and now this.
Shorts aren't in it for the short haul, look at Enron, look at the housing
bubble. When a spaceX rocket blew up, he claimed sabotage. He made a PR show
of 'moving into the Tesla factory' why? what is he going to do? Turn a wrench?

Taken individually none of these things are individually 'proof' he's losing
it. Taken collectively, the preponderance of evidence is becoming increasingly
damning. Occam's razor comes into play here. I've worked in big factories...I
led lean task forces at two factories. All of these issues look to me like a
lack of planning and an unawareness of how to execute on manufacturing
mechanical things at scale. You can't rush a ramp, but you can speed it up.
Getting management off the floor and getting them to empower engineers rather
than manage engineers is a strong step towards it. Having the CEO living in
the factory isn't anywhere in the Lean playbook that has let Toyota absolutely
crush other companies in terms of manufacturing. And remember [edit: Toyota
offered to help them do this and Musk burned that bridge].

Tesla's greatest enemy at this point is the cult of Elon Musk, and the cult's
leader, Elon Musk.

~~~
Diederich
> Tesla's greatest enemy at this point is the cult of Elon Musk, and the
> cult's leader, Elon Musk.

Huh, well, given that, I strongly suggest you short TSLA, which would be a
sure thing, right?

~~~
avs733
The best counter argument you have is sarcasm?

They had their 5th body shop fire yesterday. Immediately they implied the
saboteur was to blame. What is more realistic

I don't short TSLA, I don't hold TSLA stock or options. I don't want to be
involved with it in anyway shape or form.

~~~
Diederich
> The best counter argument you have is sarcasm?

Yeah, I was tired and irratible when I wrote that. As quotes, it's actuly
true: his small but extremely vocal 'cult' following is a big problem.

I still don't agree with most of what his most strident critics say.

I think he's being unusually straightforward in thought and communication.

~~~
avs733
Fair, I have definitely done the same thing.

Friends?

~~~
Diederich
Friendly at least! (:

------
fzeroracer
Elon Musk has built up a really uncomfortable cult of personality in my
opinion and I think it results in an incredibly horrendous environment to work
in.

The way he's been behaving over the past few weeks (incl. his since-deleted
reference to a cult site) does not exactly help his credibility when he's
making broad claims like this. He's been blaming everyone else but himself for
every single little mistake and I can't imagine him lasting very long like
that if not for the cult surrounding him propping up his ego.

~~~
Denzel
> He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake

Really? I guess you glossed over him personally accepting responsibility for
pushing Model X's falcon wing doors even though it was a mistake; and
personally accepting responsibility for automating too much of the Model 3's
assembly line which has caused massive delays.

And those are just the two examples that spring to mind of him apologizing
personally and acknowledging the weaknesses of his personality, multiple
times, in public.

Maybe you should reevaluate your absolutism.

~~~
fzeroracer
Where was that personal responsibility when he started slinging mud at the
media for reporting on the issues his company has been very publicly going
through? Or when he started insulting people in the Tesla earnings call? Or
during the fatal autopilot crash?

Or him linking to, again, a literal cult website and calling it good
journalism.

~~~
nwah1
I don't share your absolutism, but you're absolutely right that at least
lately, Musk has been sending a lot of signals that he's becoming unhinged.

I wonder if, in trying to compete with people like Bezos, including by trying
to become more macho, that he has overdosed on testosterone lately.

He used to be circumspect in his public comments. Now he seems to be
increasingly paranoid and grandiose in his thinking, and bitter towards the
"fake news" media that made him a celebrity in the first place.

And his proposals and estimates are likewise getting more detached from
reality. He claimed rockets could be a good form of intercontinental travel,
and his video showed a rocket outside a city with passengers boarding.

We can't put rocket ships outside of cities. His proposed BFR system would
have about as much explosive potential as a Hiroshima nuke, and there'd be
constant sonic booms and extremely loud engine blasts. One mix up, and you
could incinerate Manhattan.

I do like his present goals of electric cars, reusable launch vehicles, solar
power, and cheaper tunnels. But maybe take a chill pill. Ease up on the
steroids or whatever.

------
rdl
Musk has every incentive to play up this incident, as long as it's concluded.
A single bad event in the past can now be used to explain any number of
problems. I trust him enough to believe there's a kernel of truth here, but
the degree to which the sabotage actually affected operations is going to be
presented in the greatest possible light.

~~~
jacques_chester
Codename: Snowball.

------
erikb
I can't really put my finger on why, but this looks like a quite stupid move.
Usually in such situations this person gets fired and sued and then the top
management tries to put silence over that topic. An email to the whole staff
is the opposite of that and makes me wonder if Elon tries to cover some own
missteps. Any hints in that direction?

~~~
XorNot
This is almost certainly an element of it. Elon also seems to have discovered
he finds theatricality quite appealing lately, so there's also that.

------
sjg007
This doesn't make sense. If there is/was a saboteur then you would expect Musk
to stay quiet until after a criminal investigation. Especially if there are
alleged co-conspirators. Electric cars are a given now. The tech is proven.
The AI autopilot is still open but that's a NTSB issue.

------
api
Even if it's true I doubt the wisdom of publicizing it. It could derail any
internal investigation, not to mention potentially looking like bullshit
excuse-making.

Industrial espionage is real. I've heard plenty of stories. Usually it's
handled very quietly and internally for exactly these reasons.

~~~
glbrew
I think in the case of Tesla and their recent production failures they want to
publicize it to explain shortages and help defend their stock.

------
kumarvvr
This seems to be the introduction of a boogeyman to cover up for failures.

Or it might be true as well.

Only time will tell.

~~~
natch
The paranoid minds here are too much. Consider the likelihoods of each
explanation. Elon Musk didn’t get to where he is now by orchestrating bizarre
excuses.

------
toomanybeersies
So if I work at Tesla and have a bit of a dispute with my colleague, I can now
dob them in to the inquisition?

Sounds like a great corporate culture!

------
hateful
From: Elon Musk

To: Everybody

Subject: Some concerning news

June 17, 2018

11:57 p.m.

I can't stand it, I know you planned it I'mma set it straight, this Watergate
I can't stand rockin' when I'm in here 'Cause your crystal ball ain't so
crystal clear So while you sit back and wonder why I got this fuckin' thorn in
my side Oh my god, it's a mirage I'm tellin' y'all, it's sabotage So, so, so,
so listen up, 'cause you can't say nothin' You'll shut me down with a push of
your button But, yo, I'm out and I'm gone I'll tell you now, I keep it on and
on 'Cause what you see, you might not get And we can bet, so don't you get
souped yet Scheming on a thing, that's a mirage I'm trying to tell you now,
it's sabotage Why Our backs are now against the wall Listen all y'all, it's a
sabotage Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage
Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage I can't stand it, I know you planned it
I'mma set it straight, this Watergate But I can't stand rockin' when I'm in
this place Because I feel disgrace because you're all in my face But make no
mistakes and switch up my channel I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle
What could it be, it's a mirage You're scheming on a thing, that's sabotage

Thanks for working so hard to make Tesla successful, Elon

~~~
therealdrag0
I don't get it.

~~~
eindiran
I think OP took the email and replaced the body with lyrics from Sabotage by
the Beastie Boys.

[https://genius.com/Beastie-boys-sabotage-lyrics](https://genius.com/Beastie-
boys-sabotage-lyrics)

------
nodesocket
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, perhaps a short-seller
paid an employee to sabotage. It is not out of the realm of possibility,
especially since $TSLA is at a whopping 33% float short.

~~~
woodandsteel
This was my thought exactly. Sounds like they hired an ex-CIA field operative
who was expert at what he was doing.

~~~
lovich
>"This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing
Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly
sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties."

What in here indicates ex-CIA operative to you? Theres no need to add any
conspiracy around it. Adding a commit with a different username is incredibly
trivial to anyone who can run commit with the command line, i.e. 99% of
software engineers. As for exporting data to unknown third parties, I have
seen interns do this by accident. Its not complicated or needs rare skills to
do a lot of damage internally.

If Tesla runs fast and loose with ideas like their PR pieces suggest, I doubt
their security is incredibly top notch in terms of locking down internal
threats either

~~~
woodandsteel
What matters is motivation. A person who is trained in sabotage, is used to
doing it, and is being well-paid to do it is a lot more likely to so behave
than a regular person who knows they will likely go to jail if they get
caught. And there are lots of actors out there who have both the funds and
motivation to hire such a person.

------
kchr
What are the chances of this being FUD pushed by Musk to cover up for failing
to meet expected deliveries and/or possibly other obstacles Tesla's been
hitting recently?

------
toastermoster
I had heard from a third party vendor on the site that Profibus issues (for
communication to drives) was one of the major issues at site. I wonder if that
was accurate or still true if so.

~~~
bildung
Profibus is a generic protocol for sensors and machines talking to each other
(analog to JSON for web resources) so that essentially means they had problems
with systems integration, e.g. getting machines integrated into the production
lines.

Pretty surprising actually, I thought their problems were beyond that hurdle
(e.g. the automation already works but has reliability problems).

------
socratewasright
Makes sense for Elon to be on the lookout. With a short position that size,
hard to tell how low some could stoop.

------
molteanu
Searching For “Production Hell” At Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant [0]

[https://dailykanban.com/2018/02/searching-production-hell-
fo...](https://dailykanban.com/2018/02/searching-production-hell-fords-
kentucky-truck-plant/)

~~~
ballenf
Thanks for posting that. Great article. I was blown away at the open access
Ford grants to visitors and media at its most advanced production facility.
("Most advanced" is my assumption given that this plant produces Ford's
highest margin vehicles.)

------
nblavoie
I don't want to be the conspiracy guy, but if I read the email the opposite
way, I found out that the message is the sabotage first (yes), but the second
point about ramping up the production to 5k is the second subject. I'm asking
the question if this email could be a stunt to inform the investors their
production state, to inform about the delays, etc. ? Simply wondering.

~~~
sp332
5k/week was already the goal. He's just reassuring investors that it hasn't
changed. [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/tesla-
delivers-1550-mod...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/tesla-
delivers-1550-model-3s-in-q4-says-it-wont-hit-5k-per-week-next-quarter/)

~~~
nblavoie
Indeed. But I sense a more subtle message in this email than the sabotage.
Don't you feel it ? It is purely subjective.

------
bhouston
Isn't this the plot in one of the episodes of Billions? If you are short a
stock and a billion dollars is on the line, there are people you can pay who
will "ensure" that a company fails and you win your B+ bet.

~~~
coatmatter
I believe it's a plotline in any film or TV series featuring gangs or mobs.

------
pwaivers
"His stated motivation is that he wanted a promotion that he did not receive.
In light of these actions, not promoting him was definitely the right move."

Haha

------
Biba
Yeah right, first employee sabotages them and another employee shares email
from Elon to public. And choose CNBC. Someone needs to lower the stock price.

------
rahilb
Doesn't it make sense for Elon himself to be holding a sizeable short
position? Presumably he'd like to hedge his large Tesla holding?

------
Thersites
Short sellers lost over $1 billion dollars on one day a couple weeks ago.
Money talking, bullshit walking..... [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-
against-teslas-stock-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-
teslas-stock-lose-more-than-1-billion.html)

~~~
coatmatter
$1 billion sounds like a large number, but how many people was it spread
across and what percentage of their portfolio was it?

------
ucaetano
_We need to figure out if he was acting alone or with others at Tesla and if
he was working with any outside organizations._

 _As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die.
These include Wall Street short-sellers, who have already lost billions of
dollars and stand to lose a lot more. Then there are the oil & gas companies,
the wealthiest industry in the world — they don't love the idea of Tesla
advancing the progress of solar power & electric cars. Don't want to blow your
mind, but rumor has it that those companies are sometimes not super nice. Then
there are the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors. If they're
willing to cheat so much about emissions, maybe they're willing to cheat in
other ways?_

Wow, the level of paranoia he's going into is impressive.

And amazing how close his speech is moving (in form) to Trump's: it is all
about "rumors", "alleged", "witch hunt", "unfair"...

~~~
wahern
There's a $10+ billion short position against TSLA, constituting over 25% of
outstanding shares. Anyone working at Tesla _should_ be paranoid. Remember
Enron? People invested deeply in something do criminally reprehensible things.

Much more importantly, Musk made very concrete allegations, the truth of which
should come to light in short order. I remember the insinuation SpaceX made
during the 2016 incident, which was much more circumspect. If this allegation
proves false I don't think people will be as forgetful about the attempt at
blame shifting.

~~~
statictype
>There's a $10+ billion short position against TSLA, constituting over 25% of
outstanding shares.

Where do you get these stats?

Is there some place where we can see how many people are shorting different
stocks?

~~~
kbenson
It's educated guessing, from analysts, according to what I've seen.[1] That
said, it's not just a large short position, it's _the largest_ (recently
surpassing Apple shorts). Given that Apple's market cap is 15 times that of
Tesla, that's quite a lot.

1: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/04/15/tesla-
has...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/04/15/tesla-has-the-
largest-short-position-of-any-stock-followed-by-the-faangs/#449dfbcc1573)

------
jerry40
> As you know, there are a long list of organizations that want Tesla to die.

Is it correct to use 'are' here instead of 'is'?

~~~
dri_ft
I'm not sure, but my hunch is either is OK.

Compare:

> There are a hundred organizations that want Tesla to die.

> There is a hundred organizations that want Tesla to die.

~~~
ttctciyf
How many organizations? A hundred: plural. "There are a hundred
organizations.."

How many lists? One: singular. "There is a list of a hundred organizations.."

------
Fricken
Ahh, the little man again. The little man has been giving Elon and Tesla
problems for a long time.

Early on Musk thought Henry Fisker, who led the design on the Model S then
left to start his own EV company was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit
against him, but it turned out Henry wasn't the little man, and the lawsuit
was meritless.

The little man talked Musk into building falcon wing doors into the Model X,
and it wasn't until production had been delayed by many months fussing with
those stupid doors that Musk realized he had been tricked by the little man.

Who put the little man up to this? Was it the Koch Brothers? No one knows for
sure.

The little man talked Elon into putting expensive autonomous driving hardware
into every new Tesla, even though the software hadn't been made yet, and most
Tesla buyers weren't willing to pay for it. Don't worry, said the little man,
Tesla's will be driving autonomously coast to coast by christmas 2017, and
Tesla will be the greatest most futuristic company ever. But Christmas 2017
came and went and Autopilot still sucked. Damn that little man!

The little Man must be Sterling Anderson, the director of Autopilot left the
company right after launching HW2, and cofounded Aurora Innovation. Musk was
sure Sterling was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against Aurora, but
alas, it turned out the Little man was not Sterling Anderson, and the lawsuit
was meritless.

And then there was the time the little man tricked Elon into spending $2.6
billion worth of money Tesla didn't really have on a failing, debt ridden
solar panel company. Oh you little man!

The little man one night snuck into the hot tub with Elon and filled his head
with visions of a highly automated production line, that the little man dubbed
'The Alien Dreadnought'. The Robots will move so fast you won't even be able
to see them, said the little man. Model 3s will shoot off the assembly line
like bullets out of gatling gun. Buy Grohman Engineering, said the little man.
So Elon did. And many hundreds of millions of dollar later when the Alien
dreadnought failed miserably, Musk realized once again he had been tricked by
the little man, and all the robots had to be ripped out. Musk is determined,
though. Now he has parts of the Model 3 assembly line set up in a tent in the
parking lot. Elon will make it happen, even if he has to live on the factory
floor. You shall not defeat me, little man!

But it bothers him every night, that little man, who put him up to this? Is it
the Tesla shorts? are they the ones who put the little man up to this? Was it
May Mcormack? The little man has been out there, corralling the NTSB, the
NLRB, the Media, financial analysts, Moody's and the UAW all to conspire
against Tesla. Now the little man is setting the paint shop on fire and
changing code. I'll get you if it's the last thing I do, little man!

~~~
abc_lisper
News flash! Achieving great things is hard and everybody makes some mistakes
along the way. On the way, they meet jokers who take great pride in laughing
at their mistakes, because, let's be real, jokers are sore losers. Deep down
they know they can't do 1% of that shit, and so yeah, let's lift a leg and
piss on that fucker. That will show him!

~~~
yasp
Being founder / CEO of one industry disruptive company would be fine. Risky
proposition under anyone's helm, yes, but Musk is a great salesman so he would
stand a better chance than most of probably pulling it off. But no fewer than
FOUR (Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Co, SolarCity (technically under Tesla's umbrella
but for all intents and purposes its own business)), it starts to strain
credulity.

~~~
abc_lisper
Landing two rockets at the same time also strains credulity. Using it as
defense Is failure of imagination

------
otabdeveloper1
A dog-ate-my-homework tier excuse, from Elon Musk?

What can I say, except "lol".

------
shafyy
Shorting should be illegal.

------
hobolord
Listen y'all it's sabotage

~~~
toastermoster
I can't stand it, I know you planned it... gotta set straight this Watergate.

~~~
abledon
"young npm punks littering the thread with beastie boy references and old C
wizards grumbling at the youth of today"

------
timoth3y
This isn't good.

I mean, there may well be saboteurs in Tesla. That's not my issue. What
worries me is that Musk sent out a general email and announced this to the
world.

Why is that worrying?

Whether it is Trump's "Deep State", Stalin's "wreckers", shadow governments,
or Freemasons. Any time a leader starts publically pointing to invisible
actors and demanding they be investigated and stopped, something is about to
go very wrong.

What inevitably follows is leaders asserting that their failures are not due
to incompetence or poor planning on their part, but are caused unseen and
irrational forces who must be opposed.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
How is this an unseen and irrational force? It is a seen force - assuming we
trust Musk in his assertion that a specific saboteur was identified and
confessed to their actions, which I personally do given his overall track
record - and it is a rational force given both immediate motivations (revenge
for lack of promotion) and general motivations (massive extensively-documented
well-funded multi-decade effort by the fossil fuel industry to thwart adoption
of alternative energy). On top of that, none of this was public by virtue of
it being a leaked internal email.

> I mean, there may well be saboteurs in Tesla. That's not my issue.

Yes, but your issue _is_ apparently issuing proclamations about responses to
saboteurs. Your stance on said issue holds little ground when you either
seemingly can't be bothered to look at the basic facts or mischaracterize them
to fit an agenda. So, which is it? Did you not read the article or are you
being deliberately misleading?

------
_Codemonkeyism
To me this sounds like a major violation of SOX controls. If this is the case
Tesla is in deep trouble with the SEC.

~~~
falsedan
> _major violation_

> _deep trouble_

Serious: no they wouldn't. Their auditor would report the compliance failure
and say, try harder next year ok!

Real: ah hah hahah hhaaaah hahahah ha lolll

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Won't they need report the failure of controls to the SEC?

~~~
falsedan
> _Their auditor would report the compliance failure_

You have to fail multiple times, hard, before anyone gives a shit

------
bribroder
according to CNC? The machines are aliiive!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control)

------
lgleason
While plausible, it kind of sounds like a "Blame it on the Rain" situation.
[https://youtu.be/BI5IA8assfk](https://youtu.be/BI5IA8assfk)

------
whatshisface
Is it possible to make money by convincing everyone to short your company and
then pushing the rug in under them by making earnings projections? Musk's
recent announcements have been suspiciously suspicious.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
probably... 'short squeezes' do cause price spikes, and if you control the
news cycle about a company, I'm sure you could benefit from the extra
volatility.

------
bitL
Hmm, this doesn't paint rosy (immediate) future for Tesla :( Usually when CxOs
start internal blaming it's the final phase...

------
s2g
Warming up the excuses. /s

I wonder if any of these changes made it into production automobiles.

Hurray for OTA updates to safety critical systems. Go Silicon Valley,
disrupting lives everywhere!

------
dayaz36
Wow...I've lost all hope in HN. It's officially become worse than Reddit in
terms of astroturfing. I don't know how you can take a story about someone
inside Tesla sabotaging their operations and come out against Tesla in this
situation, but somehow every single comment in this thread has manged to do
that in different ways. "Tesla's fault for letting this happened!" "It's just
an excuse for production delays!" "Elon's paranoid!" "Conspiracy theorist!"
"Blaming short sellers is what Enron did! Leave the poor short sellers alone!"

I don't trust anything I read on HN anymore. Alright bots, now down vote me
into oblivion where all the pro-Tesla comments end up.

~~~
wilsonnb2
Why do you assume it's astroturfing? In my opinion, a lot of people just don't
like Tesla or Elon Musk.

It's dangerous to assume that everyone who disagrees with you on the internet
is a bot.

------
Thersites
I love Elon, and he has been seeming a little more random lately. Shortsellers
lost over $1 billion dollars in one day earlier this month, I know Elon is
paranoid, but is he paranoid enough? [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-
against-teslas-stock-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/shorts-against-
teslas-stock-lose-more-than-1-billion.html)

------
chalkandpaste
Sounds like all the bad decisions about who to hire (low cost, inexperienced
workers) and who to fire (higher cost, experienced workers), how long to force
people to work, overuse of automation, etc., has caught up with Tesla. And now
Musk wants to externalize it so Tesla doesn't look bad and loose _even_ more
orders of the model 3.

~~~
aitrean
I think you just have a lot of pot shots to take against Tesla (most of which
seem to have no precedent??), and want to project them onto this situation.
This story relates to an internal email Musk sent around, telling staff to
speak up about suspicious behaviour. It's not like he brought this to a
shareholders meeting.

~~~
danso
Musk is not dumb enough to think that an all-company "internal" email would
_not_ leak to external media.

~~~
itchyjunk
Yes, but how is he to communicate to his employee to stay vigilant?

