Factory Life
March 15, 2019 12:12 PM Subscribe
“Gouthro says that if Tripp was ignored, it was partly because his problems barely rated in Nevada. The Gigafactory, one of the world’s largest buildings by floor area, had been filled with workers so quickly that it was almost impossible to control. Not long after Gouthro started in January 2018, he discovered that many employees, some of whom were living out of their car in the corners of the industrial park, were using cocaine and meth in the bathrooms. Others were having sex in parts of the factory that were still under construction. Gouthro says the scanners guards used to check badges were unreliable, so they’d wave in anyone with a piece of paper that looked legitimate. Local scrap yards called him to report thieves were trying to sell obscure electric vehicle parts.” When Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk must have fallen in the same vat of radioactive slime at Paypal. Oh wait that was Paypal.
posted by benzenedream at 12:47 PM on March 15, 2019 [22 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 12:47 PM on March 15, 2019 [22 favorites]
What tiny sliver of respect for Musk I had remaining - and it was very tiny - evaporated recently when I learned that the upcoming Model Y will complete a long-game "joke" of model names: S 3 X Y. Apparently he high and 12 years old.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:58 PM on March 15, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:58 PM on March 15, 2019 [19 favorites]
Oh gosh it's going to turn out Musk is keeping Tesla afloat by selling drugs, isn't it? And that revelation will be used to push back against alternative energy for a generation.
posted by Western Infidels at 1:16 PM on March 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
posted by Western Infidels at 1:16 PM on March 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
Muck Fusk
posted by BlueHorse at 1:23 PM on March 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 1:23 PM on March 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
Put him on his own rocket and launch it into the sun.
posted by epersonae at 1:30 PM on March 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by epersonae at 1:30 PM on March 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
After he was outed, Tripp hired a lawyer who worked on contingency and filed a claim with the SEC, which receives 10,000 or so such reports a year. Fewer than 1 in 100 leads to a case, but the successful tipsters can get life-changing payouts—as much as 30 percent of any fine.
I don’t think it made more than a blip in regional US finance news, but a whistleblower who turned in his bosses at a prominent corporate governance advisory form in 2012 got stiffed out of any bounty since the fines didn’t exceed one million dollars. The firm got a 300 grand slap on the wrist, he got sacked for “unrelated performance reasons”.
After failing to get any payday, let alone one that would compensate for a ruined career, he took a job at some shady loan broker. In a plot twist like something out of a Grisham novel, winds up dead a few years later in a double homicide at the office.
Moral of the story: whistleblower bounty programs can have some serious fine print. If the regulators don’t find anything worthy of a million bucks at minimum, you’re fucked.
posted by dr_dank at 1:44 PM on March 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
I don’t think it made more than a blip in regional US finance news, but a whistleblower who turned in his bosses at a prominent corporate governance advisory form in 2012 got stiffed out of any bounty since the fines didn’t exceed one million dollars. The firm got a 300 grand slap on the wrist, he got sacked for “unrelated performance reasons”.
After failing to get any payday, let alone one that would compensate for a ruined career, he took a job at some shady loan broker. In a plot twist like something out of a Grisham novel, winds up dead a few years later in a double homicide at the office.
Moral of the story: whistleblower bounty programs can have some serious fine print. If the regulators don’t find anything worthy of a million bucks at minimum, you’re fucked.
posted by dr_dank at 1:44 PM on March 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
Oh gosh it's going to turn out Musk is keeping Tesla afloat by selling drugs, isn't it? And that revelation will be used to push back against alternative energy for a generation.
More likely he's being primarily backed by the Koch Brothers to sabotage the entire alternative energy industry.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
More likely he's being primarily backed by the Koch Brothers to sabotage the entire alternative energy industry.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
You don't have to sabotage the alternative energy industry--you just have to keep personal automobiles as viable modes of transport.
All this noise about his BS Boring Company and electric cars is keeping us from building real mass transit systems that would make our society better.
In case you were wondering, I hate having to drive to work. You should hate it too.
posted by MengerSponge at 2:55 PM on March 15, 2019 [34 favorites]
All this noise about his BS Boring Company and electric cars is keeping us from building real mass transit systems that would make our society better.
In case you were wondering, I hate having to drive to work. You should hate it too.
posted by MengerSponge at 2:55 PM on March 15, 2019 [34 favorites]
It's kinda funny. If you look through the Wiki on Elon Musk, he seems to have gotten dumped from every board he's ever been on, mostly for being erratic and stupid. This is just the continuation of an established pattern.
I keep hearing from Serious People in the press that business hates uncertainty, but they seem to have a real high tolerance for this sort of uncertainty, eh? I wonder why.
posted by klanawa at 3:30 PM on March 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
I keep hearing from Serious People in the press that business hates uncertainty, but they seem to have a real high tolerance for this sort of uncertainty, eh? I wonder why.
posted by klanawa at 3:30 PM on March 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
Guys, I'm starting to have some serious doubts about the meritocracy.
posted by Reyturner at 6:17 PM on March 15, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 6:17 PM on March 15, 2019 [21 favorites]
It's a pattern. He comes in with money, they tolerate him long enough to establish the company, additional investors come in, and they say, "okay we're a real business now, please leave."
And so he moves on to the next business. And if you're looking for an investor and Musk comes along, you, too, won't say no...at first.
posted by explosion at 6:20 PM on March 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
And so he moves on to the next business. And if you're looking for an investor and Musk comes along, you, too, won't say no...at first.
posted by explosion at 6:20 PM on March 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh gosh it's going to turn out Musk is keeping Tesla afloat by selling drugs, isn't it? And that revelation will be used to push back against alternative energy for a generation.
Aww man, you were sooooo close to a John DeLorean reference here.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:11 PM on March 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
Aww man, you were sooooo close to a John DeLorean reference here.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:11 PM on March 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
"Oh gosh it's going to turn out Musk is keeping Tesla afloat by selling drugs, isn't it?"
Who here has money on Musk eventually going all John DeLorean?
"Back to the Future," indeed.
posted by Dunvegan at 4:53 AM on March 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
Who here has money on Musk eventually going all John DeLorean?
"Back to the Future," indeed.
posted by Dunvegan at 4:53 AM on March 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
Tesla - The future of electric transport (~43min video) from Deutsche Wells English's DocFilm, is oddly named because it's mostly about hyping a Porsche electric vehicle in development as a potential Tesla-killer but has some seedy footage of a parking lot encampment as mentioned in the OP and a short interview with a former employee named Zachary Hodges who says he was injured on the job at Tesla, starting around 4:15.
posted by XMLicious at 4:57 AM on March 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by XMLicious at 4:57 AM on March 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
I've read this book, J. G. Ballard right? Eventually the sensible young technician working in the factory breaks from the bonds of civilization, fucks all the most interesting women, kills the power hungry sadistic older man and becomes a warlord / shaman / sex god in an absurd and surreal breakdown of modern social tensions.
posted by idiopath at 5:35 AM on March 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 5:35 AM on March 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
« Older ... second chances have long been superhero movie... | Make way, two bit half assed nature documentaries... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
...
Oh, sorry, I thought that said "Why Elon Musk tried to destroy a Tesla Whistleblower".
posted by jacquilynne at 12:46 PM on March 15, 2019 [16 favorites]