Tesla workers are reaping the consequences and testing positive for coronavirus after Elon Musk resisted Alameda County’s orders last month to reopen the company’s Fremont, Calif. facility.
During team meetings, supervisors disclosed that several employees had tested positive and those affected had been ordered to stay home, a pair of workers told The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, the outlet reported Tuesday.
Speaking to a group at the nearby seat assembly facility, also located in Fremont — about 38 miles southeast of San Francisco — one supervisor confirmed two cases of the virus, one of the workers said. That worker noted one of the cases was a staffer on the morning shift, and one worked the evening shift.
“No social distancing at all when clocking in/out [because] people are … in a hurry to go home or get back to their work station,” that worker told the outlet, noting that management doesn’t speak about about the lack of social distancing “[because] they’re not doing it either.”
The main plant reopened on May 18, following an agreement between the electric car company and Alameda County, which stipulated the company could only resume production if it implemented extra safeguards to protect its nearly 10,000 workers from the potentially lethal illness, including strict social distancing measures.
Employees at the facility currently work staggered shifts and are now required to wear masks, and minimize their contact with one another.
The agreement also required the company to report all of its positive cases to the county’s Public Health Department.
Even with the precautions detailed in the agreement, the seat assembly plant worker said wearing masks is the only real change.
Prior to the agreement though, the company was “not required to directly report known cases,” which county officials told WaPo could mean there were cases Tesla never reported.
County spokeswoman Neetu Balram noted to the outlet that there hadn’t been any known workplace-related cases of the virus among Alameda residents linked to Tesla.
Musk’s decision to reopen wasn’t his first act of resistance against public health guidelines.
Back in March, he kept the plant open before Tesla was deemed non-essential and ordered to stop production for the time being. The following month, he referred to quarantine protocol as “fascist” and bemoaned its impact on Tesla’s finances.
Early last month, in addition to suing Alameda County due to its health order, the SpaceX bigwig threatened he’d move Tesla to Texas or Nevada.
When he publicly resisted the order to resume production at the Fremont plant, and egged on officials to arrest him, Musk’s antics were supported by President Trump.
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