A Tesla whistleblower has slammed the world’s richest man Elon Musk as “pure evil” and wants to take him on in court. The former Tesla employee and engineer Cristina Balan said she lost her job after raising safety concerns.
Balan said she expressed worries about an alleged design flaw that could affect braking in a Tesla car. A panel of judges in California reversed a previous decision to dismiss her defamation claim against Tesla on Thursday.
“I started this lawsuit to prove my innocence and to prove how vindictive this monster is,” Balan said to Times Radio. “He is pure evil.”
Balan once had her initials engraved into the batteries in the Tesla Model S. But claims she was later told to resign when she told Musk in 2014 that floor mats underneath some of the pedals were curling.
Balan claimed Musk ordered his employees to email him if they had any issues but “90% of those who did got fired soon after”. When she had her query listened to Balan said she was “forced” to resign by the HR and legal departments, the Express reported.
She said: “They forced me to resign. They told me that if I’m not resigning on the spot, they will deport my entire team, because the entire Tesla team, the entire interior team was backing me up.
“Tesla’s plan and the legal department’s plan was to convince the entire team and myself to close the investigation, the internal investigation that we opened in the company to fix a serious safety issue.”
Balan, who later won a wrongful dismissal case, also said she emailed Musk about “hundreds of defects per car” and that “we are sending the cars out like that, knowing how many”. Since she left the company, Balan was accused by her former employer of using its resources for a “secret project” – potential embezzlement if true.
She has maintained her innocence and brought a defamation case against Tesla in 2019. Those claims were dismissed until a judge from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in her favour.
A potential showdown with Musk would likely take a while to arise as any future legal proceedings could need to go through an arbitration process. This is due to a contract Balan signed while working for Tesla.
Balan has said her biggest fear is that she may not live to see her day in court. She revealed she was in remission from stage-3B breast cancer.
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