A court in Tuttlingen, Germany, has upheld a 13,000 euro fine against a man who, after being rejected for a job at Tesla in 2022, mailed packages containing pig eyes to Tesla locations and senior staff, forged Elon Musk’s signature, and falsely reported a bomb at Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory.
The Tuttlingen local court had issued a penalty order in July. The man objected, but did not appear at a hearing on Oct. 6. The judge dismissed his objection in court. According to German broadcaster SWR, he must pay the 13,000 euro fine and also bear the legal costs.
Using the Oct. 7 exchange rate cited in the source material, where 1 euro was worth about NT$35.75, the fine comes to roughly NT$460,000. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, or dpa, reported that the penalty was calculated as 260 daily units at 50 euros each, with each unit equal to about NT$1,800 based on that conversion.
The source material said Section 40 of the German Criminal Code sets fines in daily units, with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 360. In this case, the 260 daily units were more than 70% of the statutory upper limit. The amount of each daily unit is determined by the court based on the defendant’s income and economic situation.
Repeated Tesla applications and forged Musk signature
SWR, citing the indictment in July, said the man had applied to Tesla several times starting in April 2022 and was rejected each time. He repeatedly asked a human resources manager to forward his application letter to Musk. In one letter, he attached a scanned Musk signature to make it appear that the message had been written by Musk himself. Prosecutors treated that act as document forgery.
68 packages sent to Tesla, carmakers and embassies
According to SWR’s July report, the packages were sent between November 2022 and January 2023. A spokesperson for the Tuttlingen local court told SWR that there were 68 in total. Recipients included multiple Tesla sites and senior employees. The Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office also confirmed to SWR that other carmakers and embassies in Germany and abroad received the same kind of packages.
Some of the pig eyes had already started to rot by the time they arrived and gave off a strong smell. SWR said the court found that the odor made some recipients feel sick, which supported bodily harm charges. Four cases were prosecuted as bodily harm because recipients suffered reactions including vomiting. The remaining packages were classified as attempted bodily harm.
The report added that most of the parcels listed Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory as the sender. dpa said it remains unclear how the man obtained the pig eyes.
Bomb hoax during minister’s factory visit
According to court records cited in the source material, the man also filed multiple reports with police and other authorities. He claimed Tesla and SpaceX employees would face a 「serious terror attack」 and alleged that company executives were involved. The indictment said he knew no such attack had been planned, and that one of his aims was to trigger judicial investigations into the employees he named.
In November 2022, the man called a service hotline and said there was a bomb inside the Berlin Gigafactory. Factory security then searched for explosives and stepped up patrols. German Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing was visiting the site that day and was escorted to a safe place after the call.
Objection dismissed, fine stands
After the court issued the penalty order in July, the defendant filed an objection. He then failed to appear at the Oct. 6 hearing, and the court dismissed the objection. Under the ruling cited by SWR, he must pay the 13,000 euro fine and cover court costs.