Electric vehicle pioneer Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is suing a former employee for allegedly hacking the company's confidential information and trade secrets and sending them to third parties, according to court documents filed in Nevada on Wednesday. The $1 million lawsuit also claims that the former Tesla employee leaked false information to the media, reported CNBC. (See also: 3 Things We Heard at the Tesla Annual Meeting.)

Earlier this week, Tesla's high profile CEO, Elon Musk 🎀sent an email to employees about a factory fire and an instance of possible sabotage. He followed up with another email about the discovery of a 𓆉saboteur. 

Former Process Technician Accused 

The automaker indicated that it is just only beginning to realize the full scope of the alleged illegal activity that former process technician Martin Tripp was responsible for. The statement read that he "has thus far admitted to writing software that hacked Tesla's manufacturing operating system ('MOS') and to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities."

Tripp has been accused of gaining access to data such as "dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla's manufacturing system" and writing code to export Tesla's data to people outside of the company on an ongoing basis. The former process technician allegedly lied to the media about numerous matters, including details about Tesla's highly anticipated first mass-market vehicle, the Model 3 sedan. 

'False' and 'Exaggerated' Statements

"For example, Tripp claimed that punctured battery cells had been used in certain Model 3 vehicles even though no punctured cells were ever used in vehicles, batteries or otherwise,” read the lawsuit. “Tripp also vastly exaggerated the true amount and value of ‘scrap’ material that Tesla generated during the manufacturing process, and falsely claimed that Tesla was delayed in bringing new manufacturing equipment online.”

Musk took to Twitter on Wednesday, writing while he is sure "there is more" sabotage within Tesla, "the actions of a few bad apples will not stop Tesla from reaching its goals. With 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues. That’s still ~ 40 people." (See also: Musk: 'Radical Improvements’ Needed to Hit Targets.)