A SpaceX employee suffered a “near amputation” of his foot while working at billionaire owner Elon Musk’s factory in Washington.
The incident – which began when a roll of material fell and crushed a worker’s foot and resulted in a $3,600 fine from regulators – joins as many as 600 previously unreported injuries unearthed late last year, including more than a hundred cases with serious damage and at least one death.
That Reuters investigative report listed four concussions, 17 cases involving “crushing” hands or fingers, eight requiring amputations, five electrocutions, 29 cases involving broken or dislocated bones, and more.
But despite SpaceX’s much-above-average worker injury rate, Musk’s company has faced less than $51,000 in government fines, a staggering drop from the $11.8 billion in NASA contracts it has won since its founding. enjoyed in 2002.
A disgruntled former employee, Travis Carson, has described that “SpaceX’s idea of safety is, ‘We let you decide what’s safe for you,’ which really means there was no accountability.”
An accident that led to a “near amputation” at Elon Musk’s SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, resulted in a $3,600 fine from regulators this month. The incident joins as many as 600 previously unreported injuries unearthed by Reuters, including at least one death
But despite SpaceX’s well-above-average worker injury rate, Musk (right) and his company have faced less than $51,000 in government fines — a drop in the bucket next to the reported $11.8 billion in NASA contracts which SpaceX has enjoyed since its founding in 2002
Carson, a former welder and production supervisor at the SpaceX factory and launch facility in Brownsville, Texas, told Reuters reporters that several of the accidents he witnessed “would be a fire violation in other places.”
“But not at SpaceX,” Carson said. “They needed bodies, and Elon needed to do things.”
Another SpaceX employee attributed this last known on-site injury — the “near amputation” at the Redmond site — to safety officials who “lack the reading comprehension nor the overall competency to implement a safety plan.”
The worker, quoted anonymously in the government investigation that led to the $3,600 fine, told inspectors that the dangerous condition in question was not merely an accident.
A SpaceX employee attributed this last known on-site injury — the “near amputation” at the Redmond site — to safety officials who “lack the reading comprehension nor the overall competency to implement a safety plan.”
First, the machine holding the heavy rolls of material that caused the injury was “intentionally misadjusted for the purpose of increasing production rates during material loading.”
Second, the weight of each roll that SpaceX workers had to load into the machine was increased from 80 pounds to 300 pounds each.
Third, as government inspectors soon discovered, SpaceX employees in Redmond were not required to wear protective steel-toed shoes — an oversight the agency spokesperson described. Reuters as a serious violation.
Less than 24 hours after the roller crushed the employee’s foot, another accident occurred: an unknown employee broke his ankle during a fire alarm.
Inspectors determined that SpaceX was not liable for the broken ankle incident and was not fined as a result.
Musk is known for running his companies with a high degree of intensity, expecting employees to go “extremely hardcore,” in honor of his companies’ lofty sense of purpose.
“Elon’s concept that SpaceX is on this mission to get to Mars as quickly as possible and save humanity has permeated every part of the company,” Tom Moline, a former senior aerospace engineer at SpaceX, told Reuters.
Moline was one of several employees fired after raising workplace safety complaints.
“The company justifies putting aside anything that could get in the way of achieving that goal,” Moline said, “including employee safety.”
During an incident at Musk’s SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas, Lonnie LeBlanc and his colleagues realized they had a problem.
They had to transport foam insulation to the rocket company’s main hangar, but had no straps to secure the payload.
SpaceX engineers work on the Crew Dragon Demo-2 craft at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Virtually nothing is painted “warning yellow,” due to Musk’s distaste for the color due to personal style
LeBlanc, a relatively new employee, offered a solution to hold the load: he sat on it.
After the truck drove away, a gust of wind blew LeBlanc and the insulation off the trailer, causing him to hit his head on the pavement.
LeBlanc, 38, who had retired from the U.S. Marine Corps nine months earlier. He was pronounced dead at the scene from head trauma.
Federal inspectors from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) later determined that SpaceX had failed to protect LeBlanc from an obvious danger, noting the seriousness and seriousness of the violation.
LeBlanc’s colleagues told OSHA that SpaceX did not have easy access to fasteners and had no process or oversight for handling such payloads. SpaceX acknowledged the problems and the agency ordered the company to make seven specific safety improvements, including more training and equipment, the inspection report said.
Musk himself sometimes seemed arrogant about safety during visits to SpaceX sites: four employees said he sometimes played with a new flamethrower
Videos posted online show it can shoot a thick flame more than five feet long. Musk played with the device in small office environments, said the engineer, who at one point feared Musk might set someone’s hair on fire
Musk himself sometimes seemed cavalier about safety during visits to SpaceX sites, with four employees saying he sometimes played with a new flamethrower.
For years, Musk and his deputies found it “hilarious” to wave the flamethrower, fire it near other people and giggle “like they were in high school,” an engineer said.
Musk tweeted in 2018 that the flamethrower is “guaranteed to liven up any party!” At SpaceX, Musk played with the device in small office environments, said the engineer, who at one point feared Musk might set someone’s hair on fire.
Last year, an open letter from some SpaceX employees criticized Musk’s behavior as a “source of distraction and embarrassment.”
But some at SpaceX are praising the efficiencies that come with less bureaucracy under Musk’s leadership.
“There’s a certain amount of red tape that SpaceX avoids, which allows it to move faster,” says former company engineer Chris Cunnington, who worked at the McGregor, Texas, site.
Despite its integral role in financing SpaceX, to the tune of $11.8 billion in contracts, NASA has not commented on Musk’s company’s safety record.
But the US space agency said it retains the power to enforce contract provisions requiring SpaceX to implement “a robust and effective safety program and culture.”