U.S. officials responsible for worker safety fined Musk's SpaceX $3,600 this month after an accident at a factory in Washington state left an employee injured and "nearly amputated," according to inspection records seen by the media. This is just one of hundreds of workplace injuries that have occurred at SpaceX in recent years. An investigation late last year found that Musk's rocket company ignored worker safety regulations and standard practices at U.S. factories. Through interviews and government records, the media uncovered at least 600 previously unreported injuries to SpaceX employees since 2014.
The incidents include the death of one worker and the injury of another, who suffered a skull fracture in a rocket engine failure in 2022 and remains in a coma.
In December, prompted by worker complaints, inspectors discovered new safety violations at the company's Redmond, Wash., plant, according to inspection records from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. A spokesman for the agency said SpaceX could still appeal the fine decision.
Records show inspectors concluded the plant lacked a "thorough safety program," lacked adequate communication of work rules and lacked a system "to correct violations." In what inspectors called a "near-amputation" incident, a roll of material fell during construction and nearly crushed a worker's foot.
But SpaceX officials told state inspectors it was a one-time incident and the problem had been resolved.
However, inspectors found that employees were not required to wear steel-toed shoes even though the rolls of material they had to load into the machines became heavier — from 80 pounds per roll to 300 pounds (36 kilograms to 136 kilograms). A spokesman for the agency said the breach was considered serious given the risk of injury.
A worker at the site told inspectors that "safety may have been overlooked" because the company's "goal was to produce as much as possible in a short period of time," records show.
The injured worker said the machine loading the rolls was "deliberately set up incorrectly to increase productivity during the loading phase." The worker, who was not named in the report, told inspectors that the issue had not been addressed and that the company's safety officer "did not have the reading comprehension skills or overall ability to implement a safety plan at the Redmond site."
In a separate incident reported less than 24 hours later, another employee at the Redmond facility jumped off a dock during a fire alarm and was taken to hospital with an ankle injury. Inspectors said the company could not have foreseen the situation. SpaceX was not fined for this.
A report last year found that the worker safety agency fined SpaceX a total of $50,836 for various violations over the past decade.
SpaceX’s history of workplace injuries and regulatory friction highlights the limits of worker safety regulation. U.S. worker safety experts say fines are legally capped and provide little deterrent to big companies. Federal and state regulators also have a chronic shortage of inspectors, they said.
Last month, the wife of a worker who was left in a coma with a fractured skull filed a negligence lawsuit against the company. SpaceX has not yet commented on the complaint.