Ten years ago, Whistleblower Partners attorney Eric Havian told the San Francisco Chronicle that, “Tech companies are increasingly supplying the government with everything” and that “we haven’t seen many whistle-blower claims involving technology firms.” Without hesitation, he wagered that big tech would produce “the next big wave” of whistleblowers.
Fast forward ten years, and tech whistleblowers are all around us, exposing the unlawful conduct of their employers. With the release of Faiz Siddiqui’s new book, Hubris Maximus, we see how Elon Musk and DOGE have taken a chainsaw to government regulators who would otherwise expose such fraudulent conduct. Fortunately for all of us, the whistleblowers continue to show up and should be rewarded for doing so.
Sidelined Government Regulators
DOGE’s evisceration of government oversight leaves a gaping hole in enforcement, a void that whistleblowers can step forward to fill. Before assuming his role, firing people who oversaw his technology businesses, Musk was under heavy regulatory scrutiny. Tesla was notoriously subject to various government sanctions and investigations until Musk became a pivotal figure in the Trump Administration. But DOGE laid off many federal employees at an oversight agency with three active investigations of Tesla, including half the team monitoring Tesla’s self-driving vehicles. Many of those investigations have now evaporated, and the agencies that conducted them are hobbled.
It is telling that the man who has done the most to cripple government oversight himself recognizes the power of whistleblowers and has long sought to discredit them.
Whistleblowers Step Into the Breach
In 2019, Musk embarked on a crusade against one of Tesla’s assembly-line workers when Business Insider reported that Tesla was wasting a significant amount of raw materials in production. Tesla sued the whistleblower, Martin Tripp, for $167 million — but it didn’t stop there. The same day, a Tesla security manager called the police to report an anonymous “tip” that Tripp was planning a mass shooting at the Tesla factory. Police arrived at Tripp’s home and determined there was no such threat. Tesla also urged a judge to block Tripp from filing for bankruptcy to escape his $400,000 liability to Tesla for revealing proprietary company documents. In a private email, Musk reportedly referred to Tripp as a “horrible human being” for “framing” the company.
Another Tesla whistleblower exposed a design flaw that could affect the cars' braking. Tesla accused her of embezzling company resources, and she sued for defamation. The courts recently reinstated her defamation case.
Perhaps the most worrisome enforcement gap is in space. Starlink, a company whose infrastructure delivers the internet itself, has rocketed almost 6,000 satellites into orbit since 2019, representing over half of the total active satellites in the sky. But a DOGE-impacted National Labor Relations Board whistleblower claims DOGE caused a significant security breach with the transmission of sensitive data over Starlink satellites.
The need for close oversight of the tech industry is not limited to Musk's companies. In the last decade, the attorneys at Whistleblower Partners have worked with many whistleblowers who are increasingly coming from big tech. Frances Haugen exposed serious misconduct at Meta/Facebook and was profiled in a 17-part series in the Wall Street Journal. Tyler Shultz revealed massive fraud at the tech startup Theranos, which falsely claimed to have invented a machine to run full tests from a single drop of blood. James Glenn, a whistleblower who exposed cybersecurity fraud by tech giant Cisco, prompted an $8.6 million settlement for the harmed government agencies. Robert Ferro exposed fraud in connection with Northrop’s spy satellite program, causing the company to pay $325 million.
More Incentives and Protections for Whistleblowers
As we foreshadowed a decade ago, misconduct in tech is now rampant, and government agencies are increasingly ill-equipped to expose it. To check the tech billionaires, we must provide financial incentives to whistleblowers to entice them to risk political and financial blowback from post-industrial robber barons. With retribution in the air, it is fitting that the law generously rewards whistleblowers for providing a valuable service to all of us, while protecting them from the immense financial risks associated with speaking out against powerful corporations.
