Tesla has reportedly accused an employee of 'maliciously sabotaging' part of its factory in a leaked email

• Tesla said it caught an employee attempting to sabotage part of its Fremont factory, according to company email obtained by Bloomberg News.
• Tesla's acting legal chief told workers the alleged incident affected "a few hours" of factory run time and that the employee had been fired, according to the report.
• Earlier this year, the FBI foiled an alleged ransomware attempt by a Russian national who attempted to recruit a worker with a $1 billion bribe.

Tesla said it caught a worker in the act of malicious sabotage at its main Fremont factory, according to company email obtained by Bloomberg News.

"Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than [sic] an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory," Tesla's acting legal chief, Al Prescott, wrote in the email, Bloomberg said. "Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later."

Tesla alleged in the email that the unnamed worker was eventually caught trying to cover his tracks and admitted his scheme to company investigators, according to the report. Prescott wrote in the email that the worker had been fired as a result of the investigation, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment about the alleged incident. It's not clear if the company flagged the incident to law enforcement. At press time, a spokesperson for the Fremont Police Department could not confirm that law enforcement was called to the scene. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Francisco office did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

In August, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla was the target of a foiled Russian ransomware attack. Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov was accused by US officials of recruiting a Tesla worker to infect the company's computer systems for a $1 million bribe. He was later arrested as he attempted to leave the country, according to officials.

"We place tremendous trust in our employees and value everyone's contribution," Prescott's Tuesday email continued, according to Bloomberg. "However, whatever the personal motivations of the attacker were, these are crimes, violations of our code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees. We will take aggressive action to defend the company and our people."