Tesla secures subpoena against Facebook in trade secrets suit
US Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke has granted Tesla’s request to subpoena companies including Facebook and WhatsApp to preserve “critical evidence” relating to Tesla’s recently-filed trade secrets lawsuit against a former employee.
Cooke authorised the motion at the US District Court for the District of Nevada on Thursday, June 27, the day after Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company filed its emergency request.
The motion relates to Tesla’s trade secrets complaint against Martin Tripp, a technician who was previously employed by Tesla. The suit, which also accuses Tripp of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of Nevada Computer Crimes Law, was filed on June 20.
Tesla claimed that Tripp “unlawfully hacked the company’s confidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties” in violation of the employment agreement he signed in October 2017 upon starting with the company.
The suit said Tripp had “retaliated against Tesla” after he was reassigned in May 2018, adding that he was fired for misconduct in June when he “admitted” to writing software which hacked Tesla’s manufacturing operating system and also to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities.
Tesla alleged that Tripp also wrote computer code to “periodically export Tesla’s data off its network and into the hands of third parties”.
On June 22, Cooke granted Tesla permission to serve Apple, Microsoft, and Google with similar subpoenas requiring the companies to keep documents, data, and records “from and pertaining to Tripp’s email and cloud storage accounts”.
Since then, Tesla allegedly learned that the former employee might be using additional services to share the company’s proprietary information, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Open Whisper Systems, and AT&T Wireless.
Tesla claimed that, if it cannot access the data held on Tripp’s accounts, “critical evidence” of his activities “will forever [be] lost, causing obvious and severe prejudice to Tesla and potentially preventing justice from being served”.
Tesla said that no undue burden will be placed on the companies asked to comply with document preservation.
On June 27, Cooke agreed that there is good cause for Tesla to issue subpoenas to Facebook, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Open Whisper Systems, and AT&T Wireless, requiring the companies to “preserve documents, data, and records from and pertaining to Tripp’s cloud storage and messaging accounts”.
Tesla’s co-founder and CEO Musk is also embroiled in a copyright dispute which came to light last week amid allegations that he “ripped off” potter Tom Edwards’ artwork of a flatulent unicorn in order to promote Tesla’s sketch pad feature.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
Today's top stories
Court of Milan upholds counterfeiting claims against Zara
