Norweigian Man FaceOff Against Musk After Leaking Software

Norweigian Man FaceOff Against Musk After Leaking Software.

Lukasz Krupski was an employee who was fired after expressing safety concerns the driver-assistance software and then went on to leaking personnel records and sensitive data about Tesla.

The service technician put out a fire at a Tesla car delivery location in Norway, seriously burning his hands and preventing a disaster.

Then he got an email from Elon Musk himself, “Congratulations for saving the day!” Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, wrote in March 2019.

However soon after it turned into a fight that has spawned lawsuits in both Norway and the United States, and caught the attention of regulators in several countries.

Mr. Krupski said in an interview with The New York Times, he was harassed, threatened and eventually fired after complaining about what he considered grave safety problems at his workplace near Oslo.

Mr. Krupski was part of a crew that helped prepare Teslas for buyers but, he became so frustrated with the company, that last year he handed over reams of data from the carmaker’s computer system to Handelsblatt, a German business newspaper.

The data contained lists of Tesla employees, including Mr. Musks, with their Social Security numbers and other personal information. There were thousands of accident reports and other internal Tesla communications included.

These leaks shows flaws with the company’s Autopilot driver-assistance software.

The data also provided the basis for stories by Handelsblatt and Wired magazine about how much trouble Tesla was having manufacturing the Cybertruck pickup, which the company has said will be delivered to customers at the end of this month, almost three years behind schedule.

Other employees has contributed with more information....

The Data Protection Authority in the Netherlands, where Tesla has its European headquarters, is investigating whether the breach violated privacy laws, but has declined to comment to any newspaper or online magazine.

Tesla is clammed up!

Thousands of former Tesla production workers, has sued the automaker in federal court in California, claiming that lax security by Tesla exposed their employee information, in such a way it could be sold to criminals. Lawyers are seeking approval from a judge to pursue the case as a class action on behalf of tens of thousands of Tesla employees.

Mr. Krupski shared this data with Aaron Greenspan, a prominent Tesla critic and short-seller, who urged him to provide information he had collected about Autopilot to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The safety agency has had a long-running investigation into the software, which can steer, accelerate and stop a car on its own but requires a driver to be ready to take control at any moment. The agency takes his information very seriously.

The U.S. safety agency has confirmed that it is investigating whether Autopilot played a role in hundreds of accidents, some of them fatal.

Mr. Krupski and Mr. Greenspan also wrote a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission raising questions about Tesla’s accounting practices. The S.E.C. did not respond to a request for comment.

In the interview with The Times, Mr. Krupski, 38, said he was unemployed and had exhausted his savings. He has served Tesla with formal notice that he intends to sue for compensation, but cannot pursue the case further until he scrapes together enough money to pay a lawyer. Unlike lawyers in the United States, lawyers in Norway are not allowed to work on commission, just like Sweden. Shit stick together as flies.

Tesla has obtained an injunction from a Norwegian court ordering Mr. Krupski not to distribute any more company information. The court also seized his laptop and turned it over to Tesla. The company notified employees of the data breach on Aug. 18, about three months after it learned that Handelsblatt had the information.

Information including work email addresses, compensation and Social Security numbers might have been leaked, Tesla told employees in an email, but said, “We have no evidence that any personal information was misused or will be used in a manner that could harm you.”

Perhaps this leads to something good in the end.