Maybe Houston Chronicle just likes ragging on Elon Musk, maybe it’s a local paper commenting on a locally important industry – either way, they’ve got a story on how SpaceX has got a leadership position no business wants. The company is head and shoulders above its private and government-run competitors in the rate of employees getting hurt on the job:
Using data released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Reuters found that injuries at SpaceX’s facilities in Brownsville in 2023 reached 5.9 injuries per 100 workers. The space industry average is 0.8.
Above-average injury rates were also seen at other Texas sites last year. In Bastrop, the injury rate was 2.5. In 2023, the injury rate at the company’s McGregor facility was 1.7, down from 2.7 the year before. The Central Texas site is where employee Lonnie LeBlanc died from head trauma in 2014 while transporting a load at the facility.
The only location that saw a higher injury rate than Brownsville’s was a rocket recovery team on the West Coast with injuries more than nine times the industry rate.
In a previous Reuters investigation, current and former SpaceX employees described staff trying to meet CEO Elon Musk’s tight deadlines for space missions and neglecting safety procedures in the process.