An engineer at Tesla's Giga factory near Austin, Texas, was injured in a robotic malfunction incident, according to a 2021 injury report.
The report, filed to Travis County and federal regulators, was reviewed by the Daily Mail.
"The robot had pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby, before sinking its metal claws into the worker's back and arm, leaving a 'trail of blood' along the factory surface," the Daily Mail wrote.
Tesla's injury report is a legal requirement for maintaining tax breaks in Texas.
"My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt," attorney Hannah Alexander of the nonprofit Workers Defense Project told the Daily Mail. "We've had multiple workers who were injured, and one worker who died, whose injuries or death are not in these reports that Tesla is supposed to be accurately completing and submitting to the county in order to get tax incentives."
A 2021 Annual Compliance Report for Giga Texas documented the engineer's injury in scant detail. But two eyewitnesses, however, described a more distressing scene to The Information, a tech news site.
"Two of the robots, which cut car parts from freshly cast pieces of aluminum, were disabled so the engineer and his teammates could safely work on the machines," The Information wrote. "A third one, which grabbed and moved the car parts, was inadvertently left operational, according to two people who watched it happen. As that robot ran through its normal motions, it pinned the engineer against a surface, pushing its claws into his body and drawing blood from his back and his arm, the two people said.
"After another worker hit an emergency stop button, the engineer maneuvered his way out of the robot's grasp, falling a couple of feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminum and leaving a trail of blood behind him, one of the witnesses said."
The Giga factory, located in an unincorporated area near Austin, received over $60 million in tax breaks from Travis County and the Del Valle Independent School District. The tax incentives are tied to strict reporting requirements, which, according to Alexander, with which Tesla may not be fully complying.
Nick Koutsobinas ✉
Nick Koutsobinas, a Newsmax writer, has years of news reporting experience. A graduate from Missouri State University’s philosophy program, he focuses on exposing corruption and censorship.
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