Whistleblower’s Twitter page goes dark
Anyone looking for the images that Tesla whistleblower Martin Tripp posted Wednesday on his Twitter account, which he claimed showed battery waste and punctured battery parts inside of Model 3 cars, was out of luck by Thursday morning.
Tripp’s page, where he posted the images under the Twitter handle of @trippedover, had disappeared by Thursday morning. A visit to the page’s link brought up the message, “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”
Tripp’s tweets included images that he claimed showed shoddy work and improper manufacturing processes at the car maker’s plant in Fremont. The tweets also included images of vehicle identification numbers of cars that Tripp said were built with allegedly unsafe battery parts.
However, the images weren’t up for long, as Tripp’s Twitter page no longer existed by Thursday.
Tripp’s lawyer, Stuart Meissner, told this news organization, “I was not aware Mr. Tripp was tweeting those tweets” until he reached Tripp on Thursday morning.
Meissner said he was concerned that Tripp’s Twitter account had been hacked because of similar instances that occurred with Tripp’s LinkedIn and Facebook accounts last week. After speaking with Tripp and confirming that the Tesla-related tweets were Tripp’s and that his Twitter page hadn’t been hacked, Meissner said, “I told himit’s best to get off of tweeting entirely.”
A Tesla spokesperson reiterated the company’s view that it believes Tripp’s claims are false.
“Mr. Tripp does not even have personal knowledge about the safety claims that he is making,” said the spokesperson. “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 and Tesla have been going at each other for weeks, ever since Chief Executive Elon Musk claimed that someone at the company had hacked into Tesla’s confidential trade information and production systems. Tesla sued Tripp in June, and then Tripp countersued in July, claiming, among other things, that Tesla defamed him by saying he had threatened a mass shooting at the company.