Former Tesla engineer Christina Balan, who was fired in 2014, said in an interview that her entire team was threatened with deportation for taking her side when she brought up a brake safety issue directly to Elon Musk. She’s now succeeded in throwing out Tesla’s arbitration case against her, and hopes to meet Tesla directly in open court in a case that could influence corporate policy nationwide.

Christina Balan is a Romanian-born engineer who formerly worked for Tesla on the Model S. Her contributions were significant enough that her initials appeared on the Model S’ battery pack.

But in 2014, she brought up what she considered a safety issue directly with Elon Musk. She thought that the Model S’ floor mats could cause a brake safety issue, similar to a situation that Toyota had recently gone through (though that also led to a media firestorm that blew the issue out of proportion). She said that Tesla had chosen suppliers based on friendships, not quality.

And she brought it up directly to Musk because… he told her to. Famously, in 2013, Musk sent out an email to the entire company stating:

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Anyone at Tesla can and should email/talk to anyone else according to what they think is the fastest way to solve a problem for the benefit of the whole company.  You can talk to your manager’s manager without his permission, you can talk directly to a VP in another dept, you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else’s permission. Moreover, you should consider yourself obligated to do so until the right thing happens.

-Elon Musk, email to all Tesla employees, March 21, 2013

A few days after sending that email, Balan said she was offered a meeting with Musk, but that when she showed up to the meeting, it was instead attended by a lawyer and some large men in uniforms, and with Tesla forcing her to resign her position.

During that meeting, Balan says that Tesla’s lawyer threatened to deport many members of her team, who were currently waiting on green card applications, if she didn’t sign the resignation, seemingly in response to her team backing her up in raising these concerns. She ended up signing the resignation in protest, writing on it that “I’m resigning for the position that I was put in a month ago bc I dare to speak up to the Sr management, also bc people that had the chance to speak up were threatened…”

When Balan’s case got coverage in Huffington Post in 2017, Tesla sent a statement that Balan had stolen company resources to work on a “secret” personal project (Tesla emails show that Balan was told to work on this project by leadership). After this, Balan says she faced difficulty in finding work as companies feared ending up on Musk’s blacklist.

Balan filed a defamation suit over the press statement, but Tesla forced her case into arbitration and got the defamation suit thrown out. Forced arbitration is widely used by companies in America to find faster and more corporate-friendly rulings, an approach that has only become more common after endorsement by the “Supreme” Court.

Balan then appealed that decision, and after many delays (some related to her fight against breast cancer, which is now in remission), she finally succeeded in getting the arbitration thrown out on Monday – even though she represented herself, pro se, for most of the proceedings.

Her win could be significant for corporate policy nationwide, as it could serve to chill the overuse of arbitration which is seen by most observers as giving disproportionate power to companies in labor disputes. However, given the nature of the court’s recent finding, which was found to be a jurisdictional issue, this decision may not be directly applicable to many other arbitration cases.

Now, Balan wants to face Tesla in open court with her case, and hopes to bring more of her story to the public – which she says Musk has tried to stop her from doing, despite his claims of being a “free speech absolutist.”

She said so in an interview this weekend with The Times UK, a media organization owned by climate denier Rupert Murdoch, who is also the father of James Murdoch, a Tesla boardmember.

In the interview, Balan describes working conditions under Musk, and that he was a mostly-absent CEO who only showed up to the office twice a month, would threaten or retaliate against those who tried to fix problems. She says that she wants to take her case to open court “to prove how vindictive this monster is. He’s pure evil… he’s enjoying hurting people… and you don’t know about them because he’s forcing everybody to give up their freedom of speech and their right to sue.”

You can watch the whole interview below:

Electrek’s Take

We haven’t written about Balan’s case before because it’s been such a long time coming, and filled with various arcane legal wranglings. There will likely be more steps to come, many of which are boring legal maneuvers, but perhaps this case will now have a chance to go more public now that the arbitration decision has been thrown out.

And, frankly, I think the initial complaint over floor mats was probably not all that significant of a blockbuster. At the time, floor mats were getting a lot of focus due to the high-profile nature of the Toyota case (which was also overstated), so I think Balan’s team was probably more wary than usual. And we didn’t go on to see a slate of floor mat problems with the Model S in the time since.

However, Tesla’s response to bringing up the safety issue is still unacceptable (to say the least). Not only were all employees told to take steps like this to get problems solved by the CEO himself, but the strong-arm nature of a quick firing in response, and then threatening her team with deportation is beyond the pale.

While we only have Balan’s words as evidence for the deportation threat, we have since seen Musk take vindictive actions against entire teams, and seen his anti-immigrant attitudes including the desire to deport people illegally.

Recently Musk fired the entire supercharger team, in what was probably the dumbest business decision Tesla has ever made, reportedly because Rebecca Tinucci, a star of the auto industry and the head of the most successful team in Tesla, refused to fire more people.

(Incidentally, another longtime Tesla exec who was fired at the same time as the whole Supercharger team, Daniel Ho, had previously praised Balan, saying “without creative engineers like you, this place would be just another car company”)

And Musk is also the largest financial backer of an administration that is currently illegally deporting US citizens to a prison famous for beatings, overcrowding and food deprivation that some have called a place to “dispose of people without formally applying the death penalty.”

He has spent much of his public advocacy in recent years showing racist and anti-immigrant attitudes, including support for German neo-Nazis and agreeing with a defense of Hitler’s actions in the Holocaust. He’s focused more on pushing his white supremacist views than on anything to do with EVs and climate change (which he’s now pushing denial of), thus working against Tesla’s mission.

So, making deportation threats against immigrants does not seem out of character, despite Musk being a formerly “illegal” immigrant himself.

Either way, we look forward to hearing more about this case as it goes on, in the hopes that it can both elucidate more for the public what the real Elon Musk is like, and possibly do something to reduce, ever so slightly, the abuse of the arbitration system by companies.

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Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are considering investing in a massive natural gas project in Alaska in an attempt to reach trade deals that would both satisfy demands from President Donald Trump and avoid high U.S. tariffs on their exports.

Alaska has long sought to build an 800-mile pipeline crossing the state from the North Slope in the Arctic Circle to the Cook Inlet in the south, where gas would be cooled into liquid for export to Asia. The project, with a staggering price tag topping $40 billion, has been stuck on the drawing board for years.

Alaska LNG, as the project is known, is showing new signs of life — with Trump touting the project as a national priority. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that the liquified natural gas (LNG) project could play an important role in trade negotiations with South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

“We are thinking about a big LNG project in Alaska that South Korea, Japan [and] Taiwan are interested in financing and taking a substantial portion of the offtake,” Bessent told reporters on April 9, saying such an agreement would help meet Trump’s goal of reducing the U.S. trade deficit.

Taiwan’s state oil and gas company CPC Corp. signed a letter of intent in March to purchase six million metric tons of gas from Alaska LNG, said Brendan Duval, CEO and founder of Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer.

“You can imagine the geopolitical enhancements whether it’s for tariff or military reasons — Taiwan is really, really focused on getting that signed up,” Duval told CNBC in an interview. CPC has also offered to invest directly in Alaska LNG and supply equipment, Duval said.

March trade mission

Duval and Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy traveled to South Korea and Japan on a trade mission in March, meeting with high-ranking officials in government and industry. Japanese and South Korean companies have asked whether their development banks can help finance Alaska LNG, Duval said.

“Lately, there has been quite a lot of inquiries from India, so there’s a fourth horse that’s entered the race,” Duval said. Thailand and other Asian countries have also shown interest, he said.

The Alaska LNG project has three major pieces: The pipeline, a gas processing plant on the North Slope and a plant to liquify the gas for export at Nikiski, Alaska. These facilities are estimated to cost roughly $12 billion, $10 billion, and $20 billion respectively, Dunleavy said at an energy conference in Houston in March.

The permits for Alaska LNG are already in place, the CEO said. Glenfarne expects to reach a final investment decision in the next six to 12 months on the first phase of the project, a pipeline from the North Slope to Anchorage that will supply gas for domestic consumption in Alaska, Duval said.

Construction on the LNG plant is expected to begin in late 2026, the CEO said. The goal is to complete construction on the entire Alaska LNG project in four and a half years with full commercial operations starting in 2031, he said.

Alaska LNG plans to produce 20 million metric tons of LNG per year, equal to about 23% of the 87 million tons of LNG that the U.S. exported last year, according to data from Kpler, a commodity researcher.

‘Unleashing’ Alaska’s resources

Alaska plays a central role in Trump’s goal to boost production and exports of U.S. oil and gas, part of the White House’s agenda for U.S. “energy dominance.” The president issued an executive order on his first day in office seeking to tap Alaska’s “extraordinary resource potential,” prioritizing the development of LNG in the state.

“We’ll have that framed on our walls in Alaska for decades,” Gov. Dunleavy said at the Houston conference last month, referring to the executive order.

Once a net importer, the U.S. has rapidly become the largest exporter of LNG in the world, playing an increasingly vital role in fueling power plants in Asia and Europe for allies with limited domestic energy resources. Japan and South Korea, for example, each took about 8% of U.S. LNG exports last year, according to Kpler data.

The Trump administration views Alaska LNG as “an important strategic project,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at the Houston energy conference. LNG exports from Alaska would reach Japan in about eight days rather than having to pass through the congested Panama Canal from terminals on the Gulf Coast, Dunleavy said at the same conference.

“They can have the opportunity to get delivered to them the most efficient LNG from an allied partner,” while avoiding chokepoints, Duval said. “This is the only LNG the U.S. can supply that has a direct route, and they are very cognizant about that in today’s environment.”

North Pacific talks

Trump told reporters during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in February that the two countries were discussing the pipeline and the possibility of a joint venture to exploit Alaska oil and gas. Trump said he discussed the “large scale purchase of U.S. LNG” in an April 8 phone call with South Korea’s acting President Han Duck-Soo, and Korea’s participation in a “joint venture in an Alaska pipeline.”

Japan wants to maintain its security agreement with the U.S. against a rising China and avoid tariffs, officials at the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority told the Alaska Senate finance committee during a February presentation. “We are now in a completely ‘transactional’ trade world,” the executives said. Tokyo must invest more in the U.S., buy more LNG and enter a joint venture linked to Alaska oil and gas, they said.

The project would likely be a structured as a loose joint venture, with Asian partners signing contracts for large volumes of LNG, Duval said, and won’t necessarily translate into Japan, Taiwan and South Korea holding direct equity stakes in Alaska LNG, though Glenfarne is open to the possibility, he said.

Glenfarne’s goal is to be the long-term owner and operator of Alaska LNG with partners, Duval said. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston. The company assumed a 75% stake in Alaska LNG from the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation in March, with AGDC keeping 25%.

Roadblocks and commercial viability

The Trump administration is clearly pressuring Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to invest in Alaska LNG, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and former energy advisor to President George W. Bush. Although Japan wants to both placate Trump and diversify its LNG supplies, Tokyo may yet hesitate to invest in Alaska LNG due to the project’s cost, complexity and risk, McNally said.

Another roadblock is that Democrats could return to power in 2028 and try to stop the project from advancing, citing environmental effects, McNally said. President Joe Biden, after all, paused permits for new LNG exports to countries including Japan that don’t have free trade agreements with the U.S. But Trump reversed Biden’s suspension as part of a torrent of executive orders tied to energy on his first day in office in January.

In addition to political risk, Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” said Alex Munton, head of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan. “If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said. There are more attractive, existing LNG options for Asian customers on the Gulf Coast, he said.

The project is expensive even by the standards of an LNG industry that builds some of the costliest infrastructure in the energy sector, Munton said. The price tag of more than $40 billion likely needs to be revised upwards given that it is two years old, the analyst said.

“You have to assume that the costs are going to be much higher than the publicly quoted figures,” Munton said. Alaska LNG will likely need “public policy or a public commitment of funds to bring it to life,” the analyst said.

Duval said Alaska LNG will be competitive with no government subsidy. “It is a naturally competitive source of LNG, independent of the geopolitical benefits, independent of the tariff discussions,” he said.

“We have the support of the president of the United States,” Dunleavy said in Houston. “We have Asian allies that need gas. Geopolitical alliances are changing. Tariff questions are coming up. When we really look at it in that context, it’s a very viable project.”

When it comes to electric bikes, range anxiety is real — but it might be less of a concern than you think. In a recent real-world endurance test, Priority Bicycles’ Will Maurillo and Connor Swegle set out to answer a simple but ambitious question: Can a Current Plus e-bike hit 100 miles (160 km) on a single charge?

The test was part of the ongoing series Will Will Do It?, where Priority Bicycles’ Will Maurillo attempts new feats on bikes to see if he can pull them off.

The Priority Current Plus was upgraded late last year with a new 720Wh battery, or around 40% larger than the previous version. The bike is rated for up to 75 miles (121 km) on a single charge, and Will outfitted a stock Priority Current Plus with the company’s range extender battery to add another 500 Wh of battery as a reserve. Considering the bike is rated for 75 miles of range, that reserve battery was likely good planning.

It may seem like attempting a century, or a 100 mile (160 km) ride, would be problematic on a bike rated for just three-quarters of that distance. But that’s where real-world riding clashes with spec-sheet numbers. While the spec sheet can give riders an idea of an e-bike’s range on a single charge, the same e-bike can achieve drastically different ranges when ridden in different power modes.

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You’ll have to forgive the quick math here, but to put it simply, many e-bikes can achieve as little as 5-8 Wh/mile in the lowest power pedal assist mode. For comparison, an average electric car uses around 30-50x as much energy to travel the same distance. So, for a 720 Wh battery, 100 miles on a charge would require just 7.2 Wh/mile. That’s on the extreme end of efficiency for a commuter e-bike, but not totally impossible.

Will started his journey in upstate New York, setting out from Poughkeepsie and attempting to make it to Manhattan, nearly 90 miles (145 km) away. Taking what looks like bicycle trails most of the way, he and Connor rolled along on a cold morning with sights set on the distant downtown NYC.

Things started out well and after an impressive 57 miles (92 km), Will still had 40% charge remaining on the main downtube battery. After some playful shenanigans, including a quick stop at a trailside skatepark, he cruised on and finally made it to Manhattan, where he began a new battle against urban traffic, stoplights, and the general everyday tribulations of riding through big cities.

By mile 91.8 though, the main battery finally tapped out. At that point, he switched over to the range extender battery to finish up the last few miles and hit his goal of 100 miles (160 km). So while he technically went the distance, the last few miles did require the bike’s optional reserve battery.

This kind of real-world, long-distance ride is rare for most e-bike owners, but it’s a fascinating look at what’s becoming possible in the latest generation of electric bikes. While most riders won’t need to cover 100 miles in a single day, the demonstration speaks volumes about how far e-bikes have come.

For most commuters, even a 10 to 20 mile (16 to 32 km) daily round trip is well within the capability of even basic e-bikes today. But rides like Will’s show that e-bikes aren’t just limited to short hops across town. They’re becoming viable tools for longer-distance adventures, weekend exploration, or just eliminating range anxiety entirely.

And for those wondering how far the bike could have gone without such a fit rider using the lowest power pedal assist mode, I may be able to help. I actually own the same Current Plus e-bike and use it for my regular commuter/recreational bike. I only charge every few rides and often get a range of somewhere between 40-50 miles (64 to 80 km) when I’m using medium power pedal assist with occasional throttle usage.

Between the big battery and the low-maintenance components like the Gates belt drive, internally geared rear hub, and 140 Nm mid-drive motor, there’s a lot to like about the bike. I don’t push mine anywhere as far as Will did, and I’m certainly not as fit of a cyclist, but I can vouch for the Current Plus being the one bike I grab when I want a long and smooth ride that mixes fitness with recreational riding. I’d be lying if I said I never use the throttle when I’m tired, but the smooth torque sensor pedal assist definitely encourages me to pedal more than I do on my other e-bikes!

If you want to see my type of riding, check out my review video of the Current Plus, below.

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