Tesla on Tuesday asked a court to bar a former employee who was a public critic of the company from going bankrupt to avoid paying $425,000 in debt stemming from a years-long legal dispute with Musk. The former employee’s name is Martin Tripp, who worked at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory from 2017 to 2018. During this period, he revealed to the media that Tesla would not be able to achieve Musk's publicly stated goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week.
Tesla sued Tripp in 2018, accusing him of illegally leaking the company's trade secrets. Tripp denies the allegation and has countersued Tesla, claiming the company defamed him. He also filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing Tesla of several "material omissions and misrepresentations" to investors, and publicly exchanged words with Musk on social media.
In November 2020, Tripp lost the lawsuit and agreed to pay $400,000 to settle Tesla's lawsuit. He was also ordered to pay Tesla a $25,000 fine for violating a judge's order by posting court documents online.
Since then, Tripp has been paying compensation to Tesla in installments until he was forced to file for bankruptcy at the end of September last year.