Another Iceberg, Right Ahead 230
the computers. Another investigator took fingerprints off
a printout near the copier used to leak the email.^428 They
found the leak and he was fired.
The leak was positive to Tesla and he really liked the
Model S, but the ongoing events had affected him. “The past
month has been very difficult, sitting through planning
meetings and watch employees make in or out of the layoff
list,” he said. “It is so sad to lose 87 employees in a week. I
became very upset and did the very foolish thing of writing
a letter to Valleywag. I have never thought this letter would
create such an upsetting situation for Tesla Motors and I
should have never sent that letter.”^429
Tesla suspected there was more than one leak. To find
out, Elon sent to several employees slightly altered versions
of the same e-mail. In one version, he wrote “I am” and
in another version he wrote “I’m.” Ironically, the e-mail
began with Elon saying, “I’m a big believer in trusting
employees.” He continued the e-mail by describing that he
was concerned about the leaks and how it really hurts free
communication when minor issues are leaked and then
blown up by the media. “It is nutty that a company like
Tesla, which is doing really well right now (how many
companies can say that they’re sold out through October?)
should suffer from misleading articles on blog sites that
would have no credibility, but for a purported inside leak,”
he wrote. “The leaks often aren’t even accurate!”^428
But Elon had failed to mention his idea to send altered
version of the same e-mail to everyone. By an accident,
each employee also got the original version of the e-mail