Oil Executive Sued By Tesla For Impersonating Elon Musk

I imagine oil company executives don’t really like Elon Musk since he’s very vocal about eliminating fossil fuel-powered cars and bringing about a motoring revolution with all-electric cars. Tesla has said that it’s suing an oil executive as it suspects him of impersonating Elon Musk to try and get his hands on the company’s confidential financial information.

Tesla has reportedly filed the lawsuit in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County claiming that Quest Integrity Group chief financial officer Todd Katz emailed Tesla’s chief financial officer using an email quite similar to Musk’s in order to obtain information that wasn’t revealed in Tesla’s recent earning call with investors.

Forbes reports that the Quest Integrity Group has partnerships with major oil companies which include ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron. The email address is said to be similar to one that Musk has used in the past, and the email is claimed to have contained the following message which clearly shows that an attempt to impersonate Musk was made. The email itself was signed off with the initials “em.”

why you so cautious w Q3/4 gm guidance on call? also what are your thoughts on disclosing M3 res#? Pros/cons from ir pov? what is your best guess as to where we actually come in on q3/4 deliverables. honest guess? no bs. thx 4 hard work prepping 4 today

em

The lawsuit alleges that Katz used “elontesla@yahoo.com” to email Tesla’ CFO Jason Wheeler so that he could obtain information about the company’s sales and financial projections. No financial information was disclosed as the attempt was caught, but Tesla says in the lawsuit that it’s worried about this happening in some other form.

Tesla’s lawsuit does not say how the company determined that it was Katz who sent this email, only mentioning that it was him who created this account to impersonate Musk.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: elon musk, Tesla