Tesla Copper Theft Allegedly Covered Up by Firing Employee

Urian B., Tech Times 21 May 2021, 10:05 pm

Tesla copper theft could be an incident that the company is trying to avoid by terminating an employee. Could there really be a Tesla copper shortage that is causing the company to steal copper? Where is the copper coming from?

Employee Allegedly Got Fired for Reporting Tesla Copper Theft

According to Bloomberg, a previous employee of the company's massive battery plant located outside of Reno, Nevada, claims in a particular lawsuit that he was fired from his decent $18,000/month job due to the company, and CEO Elon Musk, wanting to cover up a certain Tesla copper theft at the site.

The former employee's name was Lynn Thompson, who gave a statement in the complaint that he had noticed millions of dollars in total worth of copper while all being measured and cut. The copper was allegedly put on pallets and even hauled off-site.

Copper Theft was Frequent

Lynn Thompson even noted that there were multiple occasions when this happened. The first one started in April 2018 when he reported the particular Tesla copper theft to the Tesla senior management. He even allegedly told Elon Musk as well as the contractor ONQ Global.

Back in June of 2018, Lynn Thompson even said that he had witnessed certain people trying to load copper wire onto a certain truck and decided to report the incident to Tesla security, who then called the area's local law enforcement. Just a few days later, Thompson was then told by the official Tesla management that he was not yet allowed back at the gigafactory. The complaint was filed on Friday in a certain federal court in Nevada.

Alleged Tesla Copper Theft Complaint

According to the complaint, since the time, Mr. Thompson has reportedly learned that both Tesla and Musk pressured the ONQ Global into stopping him from working on the site then subsequently ended his work over at Tesla due to supposed outside reporting to both law enforcement as well as internal reporting directly to senior management.

It was also noted in the complaint that Tesla was actually afraid of the information that the plaintiff had learned and even wanted to prevent the particular information from coming out and being disclosed to shareholders and the media. Tesla apparently did not give a response to any requests for comments.

Tesla Copper Shortage?

As of the moment, the Tesla copper theft still hasn't come to a conclusion, but the complaint has come out. People can expect an update on this story once Tesla finally addresses the accusations made by a former employee.

It is true, however, that Tesla's copper supply and the copper supply around the world might be quite tough due to logistical problems and the demand for other chips to be created, but the accusation in which Elon Musk's Tesla allegedly stole copper is hard to swallow. The only way to know for sure is once the lawsuit has reached its verdict.

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Written by Urian B.