Multi-billionaire Elon Musk often causes a stir with controversial statements and idiosyncratic goals. However, at the space company SpaceX, its extreme ambitions in recent years have apparently created a highly risky work environment in which achieving goals is prioritized over the lives and health of employees.
• News agency “Reuters” reveals appalling conditions at SpaceX in a detailed report
• Far more accidents at SpaceX than the average for the space industry
• SpaceX wants to shift blame onto employees
The Tesla boss wants to use his space company SpaceX Elon Musk one day take humanity to Mars and make life multiplanetary. At the moment, a lot of work is still needed because the “Starship” rocket system recently exploded during a second test flight. But that’s no reason for the ambitious entrepreneur to give up: Musk has already said that the latest test will help improve the reliability of “Starship” despite the explosion.
“Elon’s concept that SpaceX is on a mission to go to Mars as quickly as possible and save humanity permeates every part of the company,” former SpaceX employee Tom Moline recently told Reuters. This goal is placed above all else at SpaceX – including following safety precautions that serve to protect employees. For the company, the proclaimed salvation of humanity is a justification for “disregarding anything that could stand in the way of achieving that goal, including worker safety,” said Moline, who was fired from the space company, according to the news agency. after he voiced complaints about the safety of his job. According to Reuters, other employees also said SpaceX’s willingness to ignore worker protections helped the company gain a lead over competitors and win lucrative government contracts. “Reuters” itself was able to find out in a detailed investigation, for which court documents, employee complaints, medical records, emergency call logs and internal accident logs of the company were examined, that it appears to be extremely dangerous to work at SpaceX – and that the company apparently sweeps many accidents, some of them very serious, under the carpet.
Numerous accidents with serious consequences
As “Reuters” reports, work in the US space industry is generally considered dangerous, but at SpaceX the accident rate is well above the industry average. This is generally 0.8 accidents per 100 employees, but at SpaceX in 2022 there were 4.8 accidents per 100 employees at the Brownsville location. The Kennedy Space Center location also recorded a whopping 21.5 accidents per 100 employees in 2016. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg, as SpaceX did not adequately document many accidents, according to the news agency. Since 2016, all workplace accidents have actually had to be reported annually to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which deals with occupational safety. However, between 2017 and 2020, not a single SpaceX site apparently made this report. Some – but not all – locations only submitted the report to the authority for the years 2016, 2021 and 2022. According to Reuters, there was no penalty for the missing reports.
In its own research, the news agency found at least 600 previously unreported accidents at a total of six SpaceX locations since 2014. The documents examined included “reports of more than 100 workers with cuts or abrasions, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 with bruises hands or fingers’ and nine with head injuries [enthalten], including a skull fracture, four concussions and a traumatic brain injury. The cases also included five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents resulting in amputations, twelve injuries involving several unspecified body parts and seven workers with eye injuries. There were also numerous cases of less serious injuries such as strains or sprains.
There was also a death at SpaceX. In 2014, an employee at the site in McGregor, Texas, died of a head injury after being blown off the back of a truck by a gust of wind. He was supposed to be transporting foam insulation with his colleagues, but there were no straps available to secure the load, so he tried to secure it with his body while driving. According to Reuters, another SpaceX employee has been in a coma since 2022 after a part came off a machine during a test run and hit the man in the head. The machine part in question had already been known to be faulty, but could no longer be replaced before the test run. As the news agency further reports, the space company was only fined small amounts by officials, amounting to a maximum of five figures, for the accidents that occurred due to a lack of safety precautions.
Extremely lax safety culture at SpaceX
According to “Reuters”, the reports reviewed make it clear that the security standards at the SpaceX locations are inadequate. Former and current employees also described the situation at their workplace to the news agency as “chaotic”. New employees were often inadequately trained and equipped – and also had to take on work for which they were not qualified. For example, a worker with no experience was once given a welding tool. In addition, employees are often overtired and routinely ignore basic safety precautions – also due to SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s aggressive deadlines. His heavy involvement in scheduling led to “significantly more unsafe working conditions than would otherwise have existed,” Tom Moline told Reuters.
As the news agency reports, Musk also has an aversion to bright colors such as yellow, which is why workers were advised against wearing safety yellow vests, among other things. Furthermore, SpaceX skimped on warning signs and potentially dangerous areas were often not cordoned off, Paige Holland-Thielen, a former operations and automation engineer at SpaceX in Hawthorne, told Reuters. Elon Musk himself is also said to have posed a security risk in his presence. He played around with the flamethrower gadget from his tunnel construction company The Boring Company on several occasions on SpaceX’s premises, including in closed rooms. In addition, according to the news agency, Elon Musk would also despise any “supposed bureaucracy” – which probably explains the lack of reports to OSHA.
SpaceX sees no blame on itself
According to Reuters, SpaceX has not commented on many of the accidents – and generally takes the position that the workers themselves are responsible for their protection – and therefore also for their injuries. “SpaceX’s idea of safety is, ‘We let you decide what’s safe for you,’ which really means there’s no responsibility,” former SpaceX employee Travis Carson told Reuters. According to the news agency, however, SpaceX appoints special “responsible engineers” who are responsible for ensuring that their machines function correctly and that safety precautions are adhered to – and to whom the blame is shifted in the event of an accident. However, this is unlikely to be legally tenable. A former OSHA employee called this idea “ridiculous” and the agency also confirmed to “Reuters” that the employer is responsible for ensuring a safe workplace – and not specific employees. However, it remains to be seen whether this attitude will eventually also reach SpaceX and whether employees will no longer be seen as just replaceable human capital.
Editorial team finanzen.net
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