Photo: Getty 
 
 Martin Tripp is currently embroiled in a nasty legal dispute over claims he’s made about his former employer, Tesla. On Wednesday evening, Tripp began tweeting out details and photos about his time at Tesla and found himself suspended faster than you can say, “Infowars was an inside job.” 
 
 A former technician for the electric vehicle company, Tripp was fired by Tesla earlier this year and he was accused by Elon Musk of being a “saboteur.” A subsequent lawsuit filed by the company accused Tripp of hacking into “the company’s confidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties,” and giving false information to media outlets. Tripp took his claims to the SEC and filed a whistleblower tip. He then filed a $1 million defamation lawsuit against Tesla. There’s a lot of bad blood between these two parties. 
 
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 Earlier tonight, Tripp took to his personal Twitter and began posting photos that he claims help back up some of the assertions that Tesla has denied. “Are you ready,” he asked his followers and proceeded to upload photos of what he claimed to be improperly handled cooling tubes, proof of damaged battery cells being reworked and installed in cars that were sold, and graphics about a high volume of scrap waste. Tripp made many other allegations but what might be his most jaw-dropping disclosure was a listing of Teslas that he claims were sold with “punctured / dented / damaged” batteries. 
 
 
 
 If you’re a Tesla owner, you might want to make your way here, here, here, and here to check out the VIN numbers of models that are allegedly carrying hazardous batteries. 
 
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 But not all of Tripp’s tweets are still on his page. He told Gizmodo that he’s been slapped with a twelve-hour suspension by Twitter and some tweets were deleted. In a direct message (he can still use DMs) he told us that he believes it was because at least one photo contained “an email [address] with Elon’s name.” We can confirm that one photo did appear to show what may be Elon Musk’s email address. Tripp showed us a screenshot of the notification Twitter sent him, and it does list the reason for his temporary suspension as violating its policies against posting private information: “You may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission.” 
 
 Here’s the image that contained Musk’s name beside an email address with the address redacted: 
 
 Screenshot: Martin Tripp 
 
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 Whatever the veracity of Tripp’s claims, you have to give him credit for just laying his case out there for all to see. We contacted Tesla for comment and a spokesperson told us: 
 
 As we’ve said before, these claims are false and Mr. Tripp does not even have personal knowledge about the safety claims that he is making. No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries. Notably, there have been zero battery safety issues in any Model 3. 
 
 Tripp also finds himself as an example of how quickly Twitter is capable of responding to a violation of its policies while the social networks CEO is doing publicity 24/7 to explain how hard it was to suspend Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Infowars who is being sued for claiming the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and inspiring his followers to harass and dox the victims’ families. When asked for comment on this story, Twitter did not immediately reply. 
 
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 It definitely appears that Tripp violated Twitter’s terms, and the fact that the company responded in a matter of a couple of hours sets a new gold standard for which we should all hold the company accountable. We’re more than curious to find out if its capable of evaluating violations so quickly when the personal information belongs to someone who’s not a billionaire. 
 
 [ht Lora Kolodny/CNBC] ||||| John Moore / Getty Images 
 
 Editors Note: Martin Tripp's Twitter account has been taken down; the images he tweeted are no longer available. 
 
 "Are you ready," Martin Tripp tweeted on Wednesday evening, before sending out dozens of photos that he alleges came from inside Tesla. 
 
 Tripp told Business Insider he thought the photos were central to his legal battle with the electric-car maker. A former process technician at the company's Nevada Gigafactory, Tripp claims the photos support allegations he has made about the safety and quality of Tesla's parts, specifically the batteries that power Tesla's vehicles. 
 
 "I decided to send this info out because I have been humiliated by Tesla and Elon Musk," Tripp told Business Insider. 
 
 Tesla sued Tripp in June, accusing him of hacking the company and transferring secret information to third parties. 
 
 Earlier this month, Tripp filed a countersuit. He denies Tesla's claim that he's a hacker and says the company intimidated and harassed him after he was fired. 
 
 "As we've said before, these claims are false and Mr. Tripp does not even have personal knowledge about the safety claims that he is making," Tesla said in a statement to Business Insider. "No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries. Notably, there have been zero battery safety issues in any Model 3." 
 
 If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com. ||||| The Tesla “whistleblower” who was accused of sabotage has filed a counterclaim against Tesla and Elon Musk, arguing that his former employer defamed him when it told media outlets that he had threatened a mass shooting. 
 
 Martin Tripp, a former technician at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada, was sued by the electric car company on 20 June, just days after Musk had sent a company email stating that an employee had engaged in “quite extensive and damaging sabotage” against the company’s computer systems. 
 
 The lawsuit accused Tripp of hacking, theft, and making false claims to the media about punctured battery cells and excess scrap material. 
 
 Tripp fought back, telling reporters that he was not a saboteur, but a whistleblower who had leaked information to a reporter for Business Insider out of environmental and safety concerns. 
 
 In response to Tripp’s claim to be a whistleblower, Musk told the Guardian by email on the evening of 20 June that Tesla had “received a call at the Gigafactory that he was going to come back and shoot people”. 
 
 Elon Musk: the volatile visionary at risk of steering Tesla off the road Read more 
 
 The Guardian did not publish the allegation, but other media outlets did, based on an official statement from a company spokesperson stating that the call came “from a friend of Mr Tripp”. The local sheriff’s department announced that “there was no credible threat” the next day. 
 
 Earlier this month, Musk faced significant backlash after he baselessly accused one of the British cave divers involved in the rescue of 12 Thai children of being a “pedo”. The diver said he was considering legal action, and Musk eventually apologized. 
 
 William Fischbach, one of the attorneys representing Tripp, said Tuesday: “Tesla has made several false and defamatory statements about Mr Tripp in an effort to discredit him before the general public.” 
 
 Another attorney for Tripp, Robert D Mitchell, added: “There were very suspicious, very contradictory stories that were advanced by Tesla. We’re going to be interested in getting to the bottom of how the story was concocted.” 
 
 Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously challenged the accuracy of Tripp’s claims. 
 
 
 
 The counterclaim, filed in federal court in Nevada on Tuesday, reasserts claims that Tripp had made to Business Insider about his concerns over “high levels of waste and scrap”, “unnerving, dangerous and wasteful business practices” and “punctured battery modules”. 
 
 The countersuit also alleges that Tesla never received any phone call from “a friend of Mr Tripp” and argues that even if the company had received such a call, it acted “with at least negligence” by failing to “conduct a reasonable investigation” prior to publicizing the information. 
 
 The suit further alleges various problems with Tesla’s behavior on the night of the alleged shooting threat, stating that Tesla had “provided inconsistent responses” to law enforcement when asked whether the caller was male or female; that Tesla “provided false information” to law enforcement when it claimed to be able to “verify” that Tripp was “armed”; and that Tesla “appeared to know exactly where Mr Tripp was located” during the course of the sheriff’s department’s investigation, telling investigators that “little birds sing”. 
 
 
 
 Mitchell and Fischbach declined to comment on the source of their information about Tesla’s statements to investigators, but they said they had confidence in their evidence. 
 
 The suit also addresses a series of tweets that Musk sent about the Business Insider reporter, Linette Lopez, to whom Tripp had leaked information. 
 
 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Indeed, very simple question. To be specific: @lopezlinette, did you compensate or promise to compensate Martin Tripp for inside information about Tesla? Did he, under that inducement, provide you with exaggerated negative info, which you printed, but turned out to be untrue? 
 
 The countersuit claims that the tweet “falsely implies that Mr Tripp accepted a bribe from Ms Lopez in exchange for providing information”, which Tripp denies. 
 
 Tripp is seeking at least $1m and punitive damages for claims of defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 
 
 The countersuit comes at a sensitive time for Tesla, which is under intense pressure from investors to prove that it can mass-produce its electric vehicles and turn a profit. 
 
 Tesla will announce its quarterly financial results Wednesday. ||||| Martin Tripp. Business Insider 
 
 Martin Tripp, a former process technician at Tesla who says he made $28 an hour, filed a countersuit against the company on Tuesday. 
 
 Tripp, 40, alleges that Tesla is not living up to its mission to improve the environment and instead is generating "large quantities of waste and 'scrap' vehicle parts lying haphazardly on the ground inside the Gigafactory," according to the counterclaim. 
 
 Tripp also alleges that Tesla consistently reused battery parts that had been discarded as waste. His filing says he "was even told by one colleague that the colleague, after seeing damaged products being reused, intentionally further damaged the parts to prevent them from being used in a Model 3." 
 
 More allegations from Tripp's counterclaim: 
 
 "In mid-May 2018, [Tesla's] Manufacturing Operating System ('MOS') showed that from January 1, 2018 to mid-May 2018, approximately $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 worth of battery module parts, including bandoliers and battery cells, had been categorized as 'Scrap.'" 
 
 Tripp also claims that punctured battery cells were reworked with glue and put back on the manufacturing line: "Based upon information and belief, no quality inspections were performed on these 'reworked' battery modules before they were returned to the manufacturing processing line. Mr. Tripp personally observed technicians perform this process on several battery modules." 
 
 Tripp claims that Tesla discontinued systems to track vehicle parts: "As a result, traceability is unknown for many vehicle-parts and/or materials which could have a drastic effect on determining where the part(s) were made, when, and by whom." 
 
 Tripp denies allegations that he hacked into Tesla's manufacturing operating system. 
 
 Tripp claims Tesla "published these false and defamatory statements out of malice and to retaliate against" him and "discredit him before the general public." 
 
 Earlier, Tripp leaked internal documents and other information to Business Insider. 
 
 A self-proclaimed former Tesla fanboy, Tripp claims that he tried bringing his concerns to his superiors and to Tesla CEO Elon Musk first but that nothing came of it. 
 
 Now Tripp is being sued by Tesla, which accuses him of hacking the company and transferring secret information to third parties. 
 
 Tesla also claimed it received a tip from a "friend" of Tripp who suggested Tripp might try to "shoot up" the Gigafactory. Law enforcement looked into it at the time and found no credible threat. 
 
 Tripp denies any violent intentions in his counterclaim and says Tesla declined to reveal the name of the "friend" who gave it the tip. 
 
 "Tesla has used strong-arm tactics and a defamatory smear campaign in an effort to bury the disconcerting information Martin Tripp learned as a Tesla employee and to discredit Mr. Tripp before the general public," Tripp's attorney, Robert D. Mitchell of Tiffany and Bosco, said in a statement to Business Insider. 
 
 "By filing its lawsuit against Mr. Tripp, Tesla has now forced the issues to the forefront, and Mr. Tripp looks forward to defending himself before a jury of his peers by showing that what he witnessed and repeatedly reported at Tesla is, in fact, true." 
 
 Tesla did not respond to requests for comment for this story. 
 
 What may happen when Tesla wants to sue you 
 
 Tripp's legal troubles with Tesla began on June 14 and 15, when the company's security team called him into meetings for questioning. 
 
 He tells Business Insider the first meeting lasted about six or seven hours. Tripp claims Tesla's team wanted to know how he allegedly ran queries into its manufacturing operating system, such as about Tesla's scrap waste and part prices, and why he'd do that. 
 
 Tripp says he told Tesla that he felt Musk was misleading investors about production numbers and that Tesla's security personnel laughed in response. 
 
 Tripp says he then took Tesla's team to an area where nonconforming battery parts were lying about. Some of those batteries were destined for rework, and he explained his fears about hurriedly reworked batteries going into "thermal runaway," a condition in which an overheating battery begins to destroy itself. 
 
 Tripp says he was eventually escorted out by security, at which point, he says, he found his car surrounded by further security in the Tesla parking lot. 
 
 Tesla security wouldn't leave until a truck came to escort Tripp out, he claims. The incident left him with the impression that he'd been let go from the company. 
 
 He was not. 
 
 The next day, Tripp says, Tesla's security team called him back for more questioning and then put him on "administrative leave." 
 
 Tripp recalls the second meeting with Tesla being shorter and less cordial than the first. Tesla's team asked similar questions and then started to ask stranger ones, Tripp claims. They wanted to know how he had allegedly managed to put a program into the MOS that ran queries into the system at the same time every day, searching for scrap costs. 
 
 According to Tripp, the security team told him it knew he had logged into nine computers and had the program running from three of them. 
 
 Tesla did not respond to request for comment on the meetings. In Tesla's complaint, Tesla alleges that in the meetings, Tripp admitted to writing software that hacked Tesla's MOS and to transferring "several gigabytes of confidential and proprietary Tesla data..." Tripp denies these accusations in his filing. He told Business Insider he didn't even know how to code. 
 
 "This ordeal, which, inter alia, implied that Mr. Tripp was a danger to those around him, was highly embarrassing and distressing to Mr. Tripp," Tripp claims in the filing. 
 
 Later, Musk wrote in a company-wide email that Tesla had a "saboteur" on its hands. Shortly after that, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Tripp. 
 
 In a now-public email exchange between Tripp and Musk, the Tesla CEO called Tripp a "horrible human being." 
 
 The company alleges that Tripp stole confidential data and exaggerated the numbers in that data to the media. Tesla also alleged that Tripp hacked into its MOS. 
 
 Tripp says his safety was jeopardized in the weeks that followed. 
 
 The counterclaim alleges that Tripp "has received numerous threats to his personal safety, which, upon information and belief, have been stirred by the foregoing false and defamatory statements published about him" by Tesla. It continues: "Mr. Tripp has even been followed and trailed on multiple occasions by unidentified individuals." 
 
 Claims and rumors 
 
 Rumors have flown around Tesla's factories about Tripp and the "saboteur." 
 
 An engineer at the Fremont, California, factory told Business Insider that the engineers thought it was crazy that any such "saboteur" could exist at all. In their opinion, this person would have to have been a professional hacker. 
 
 "The MOS configuration ... gets overwritten daily with an automatic push from a stash repository," the person said. "All changes on said stash are trackable and require approval from other members." 
 
 He added: "Pushing malicious software onto other people's computers would not be possible without their authorization unless [the person were] a professional hacker. To which then I would say, 'Why is [Tripp] working as a process technician?'" 
 
 In his counterclaim, Tripp maintains that the information he sent to Business Insider was accurate. 
 
 All of this comes at a critical time for Tesla. Analysts at Goldman Sachs say the company may have to raise money soon to maintain a comfortable cash position as it tries to scale its new Model 3 sedan amid production delays. 
 
 The company reports its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday. 
 
 If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com. 
 
 Disclaimer: The author of this article is specifically named in the counterclaim, where Tripp alleges that statements Musk made on Twitter to @lopezlinette are false and defamatory.
– A former Tesla technician continues to cause headaches for CEO Elon Musk. "Are you ready?" Martin Tripp tweeted Wednesday before unleashing internal documents and photos he alleges show scrap piles, "bent" cooling tubes, and "reworked" M3 battery modules at Tesla's battery factory in Nevada, backing his claims of dangerous practices, per Business Insider. (His Twitter account was down as of Thursday morning, with Gizmodo reporting he had received a 12-hour suspension, ostensibly after tweeting Elon Musk's email address.) Before his account was suspended, Tripp also shared dozens of vehicle identification numbers of cars built with what he says are "punctured/dented/damaged" battery cells, allegedly the result of a robot that malfunctioned in February. "This is how @elonmusk and his business operates. He's taking money and fooling everyone," added Tripp, who is suing his former employer for defamation. "As we've said before, these claims are false," a Tesla rep tells CNBC. "No punctured cells have ever been used in any Model 3 vehicles in any way, and all VINs that have been identified have safe batteries." Yet Tripp isn’t the only ex-employee making such claims. Per Business Insider, former Tesla engineer Cristina Balan says she was silenced and left the company in 2014 after airing concerns about design flaws, part defects, and waste. "As soon as the Model S came out the door and Elon realized how cool he'd become, everything went down the drain," she says.