Elon Musk hunts for employees sabotaging Tesla

A wild all-hands email at Tesla on Sunday this week has Elon Musk pointing to sabotage, claiming that an employee made "extensive and damaging" changes to code under multiple usernames, and exporting data:

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 email is really something, and points to a disgruntled employee who wanted a raise but didn't receive one, ultimately taking out their disappointment on the company's bottom line. 

What's notable about this is it isn't the first time Musk has claimed sabotage against one of his companies. Back in 2016, Musk insinuated a SpaceX rocket accident may have been caused by sabotage, a claim that never found any real weight in reality.

If this was sabotage, Musk appears to revel, even internally, in leveraging it to blame groups who supposedly 'want' Tesla to fail as part of his rhetoric again

The car company's struggles to ramp up production of its next-generation Model 3 car continue, and Musk takes every opportunity to explain why the media is full of haters, when perhaps Tesla is just stuck. We'll see how this pans out, but I'll surprised if we learn the full details.


Scooter madness
"Twelve companies submitted proposals to operate electric scooter share services in San Francisco. There's up to 5 permits for grab. Applicants include scooter OEMs, Startups and Rideshare firms." — @michalnaka

This thread, with the benefits and drawbacks of each scooter company vying to win a San Francisco license, is wild.


Tab Dump

Tim Cook: the world's top diplomat
A great in-depth look at how Tim Cook works with world leaders to avoid being harmed by things like tariffs. He personally visited President Trump last month, for example, to ensure the iPhone would be exempted from Chinese tariffs.

Google slip-up could reveal location of a Chromecast or Home device

Android finally gets the ability to send messages from your computer

This great post about the 'Facebook Nevers' and how the social network ensured its future