Musk: Injury rate “a little above average” last year.
SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla Inc. should release more information than Elon Musk gave shareholders to set the record straight on the electric-car maker’s work-safety record, according to former occupational health officials who worked under the Obama administration.
The rate of injuries per person at Tesla is 6 percent below industry average so far this year, after being “a little bit above” average last year, the CEO said during the company’s annual meeting Tuesday. The carmaker aims to lower the rate to half the auto industry average, he said, without saying by when or giving more specifics.
It’s difficult to assess Musk’s comments without more detail, according to David Michaels, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under Obama. The CEO made the claims after months of media reports about Tesla facing inspections by California’s work-safety regulator and allegations that the company may have under-reported workplace injuries.
“Injury rates are complex, and so it’s difficult to judge on the basis of a statement saying it’s 6 percent lower,” Michaels, who’s now a professor at George Washington University’s public health school, said in an interview. “I’d want to see the rates, but also the data on which they’re based.”
OSHA inspections
Cal/OSHA opened at least two inspections of Tesla in April. One related to a subcontractor who was hospitalized after a piece of factory equipment struck him in the face and broke his jaw. The agency declined to say what triggered a second investigation, though it was initiated after the Center for Investigative Reporting’s news outlet Reveal published a story that said Tesla failed to report serious injuries as legally required.
Musk responded harshly to the Reveal report on Twitter, calling it “carefully constructed propaganda.”
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