A factory worker at the Tesla Giga Texas facility in Austin was reportedly attacked by a robot, which pushed its claws into his body, causing injuries.
According to a new report, the incident occurred two years ago. It was reportedly one of a series of incidents at the Giga Texas factory, which is crucial to Tesla's goal of building a sub-$25,000 electric vehicle, Fortune reported.
Robot Attack in Tesla Facility
Citing two unnamed witnesses, The Information reported that the engineer working on three robots in 2021 inadvertently left one of them active. The active robot allegedly "pinned the engineer against a surface, pushing its claws into his body and drawing blood from his back and his arm."
After another worker hit the emergency stop button, the worker was able to get out of the robot's grasp and fell a couple of feet down a scrap metal chute, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
While it remains unclear if there was any federal response to the incident, Tesla filed an injury report with the county, indicating a worker's injury involving a "laceration, cut, or open wound" caused by a robot.
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Elon Musk Comments on Tesla Robot Attacking the Worker
Commenting on the report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the information is inaccurate.
"Truly shameful of the media to dredge up an injury from two years ago due to a simple industrial Kuka robot arm (found in all factories) and imply that it is due to Optimus now," Musk wrote on X on Wednesday.
The Tesla CEO was replying to an X user who explained that the robot just made a decision and "did exactly as it was programmed to do." The X user also asserted that "the worker thought it was off when it wasn't," and Musk commented, "Correct."
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspected Tesla's Austin facility only once a year in 2021 and 2022. OSHA is a Labor Department division responsible for workplace safety.
On the other hand, Tesla's Fremont, California, factory underwent nine safety inspections each year in 2021 and 2022 and four in 2023. According to The Information's analysis of federal data, Tesla's Austin factory exhibited a higher rate of worker injuries than other auto plants.
In 2022, almost one in every 21 workers at the Austin facility suffered job-related injuries, a higher figure than the one in 30 median injury rate in similar factories. However, the California facility's injury rate was reportedly even higher, with one in 12 workers being hurt while on the job in 2022.
According to Fortune, a study released by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researcher earlier this year found that 41 US workers were killed in robot-related workplace incidents over a period of 15 years. Most of these deaths reportedly took place while a worker was performing maintenance on a robot.
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