Tesla Fired Employee On Allegations Of 'Maliciously' Sabotaging Fremont Factory: Report

Tesla Inc TSLA fired an employee for carrying out malicious activities at its manufacturing facility in Fremont, California last month, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

What Happened:  In an internal memo, Al Prescott, Tesla’s vice president of legal and acting general counsel said the employee's actions at the Fremont factory led to the disruption of operations for a short period.

“Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than [sic] an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory,” Prescott wrote, according to Bloomberg, adding that the quick actions of the teams “prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later.”

The unnamed employee sought to blame a co-worker and destroy a company computer, as per the memo.

When confronted with “irrefutable evidence,” the employee confessed, and “as a result, we terminated employment,” Prescott reportedly said.

Why It Matters: It is not clear if Tesla reported the matter to law enforcement agencies — a spokeswoman for the Fremont Police Department confirmed to Bloomberg that they had not responded to any similar incident.

In August, a Russian hacker was indicted by prosecutors in Nevada for allegedly trying to hack Tesla by inducing its employees to surreptitiously install malware on company computers.

Musk had said in an internal email in 2018 that an employee was trying to sabotage the automaker, noted Bloomberg.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed 2.75% lower at $413.98 on Tuesday and fell almost 0.2% in the after-hours session.

Photo courtesy: Maurizio Pesce via Flickr