SpaceX is facing a one-two punch of personal injury lawsuits after two different workers have sued the Elon Musk-owned company this month over being injured on the job, the San Antonio Express-News reports, adding to the poor safety track record at its Starbase facility in South Texas.
The latest suit, filed in Cameron County on Monday, was leveled against SpaceX and the steel firm W&W Erectors LLC by a subcontractor named Julian Escalante, who was working on one of the launchpads used by Starship — the largest rocket in the world, whose development is under massive pressure for being behind schedule.
According to the suit, Escalante’s right arm got “entangled and pinched” by a metal bucket holding “approximately 200 pounds” of industrial-sized bolts after it tumbled from a pallet.
“As the bucket fell, (Escalante’s) right arm was dragged downward with (the bucket),” the suit said, per the Express-News “The downward force pulled (his) right shoulder, and (he) fell with the bucket as it hit the ground.”
Just as concerning as the accident, which took place in November, was his higher ups’ alleged response to it. When Escalante reported it to his supervisor, the supervisor told him “not to report the injury and instructed him to return to work,” the suit claims, and his foreman, Joe Pedroza, had basically the same advice: “Just don’t tell anyone.”
But Escalante wanted medical care for his injury. His inquiries into where management stood on his request allegedly didn’t fly well with the General Foreman, identified only as “Wero,” who told Escalante to “be a man” and “stop crying,” according to the suit. His lawyers say that SpaceX was negligent in maintaining a safe job site.
A similar lawsuit was filed earlier this month by a worker named Sergio Ortiz, the Express-News reported, who says that in 2024 he was struck by falling debris while working in an elevator shaft at Starbase. According to the suit, the heavy cables used by welding machines called welding leads, which can weigh up to 80 pounds, fell from above and slammed his head.
The suits are the latest to put the safety track record of SpaceX under the microscope. For years, it’s faced suits for accidents and even deaths, including a botched rocket test that left one employee in a permanent coma when a piece of one of Starship’s engines flew off and fractured his skull. A Reuters investigation in 2023 found at least 600 cases of workplace injuries at SpaceX that went unreported.
The company is under intense pressure to perfect Starship, which NASA has selected to perform a lunar landing in its upcoming Artemis III mission — a role that’s now under some doubt.
The company also allegedly has a track record of retaliating against employees. It has faced several lawsuits over sexual harassment, including some that implicated CEO Musk. In a 2024 lawsuit, eight former employees accused the company of illegally firing them after raising concerns over sexual harassment.
It’s not the only Musk-owned venture facing similar legal allegations, either. His automaker Tesla has also been hit with numerous lawsuits over brutal working conditions and workplace accidents, joined by widespread accounts of Musk impulsively firing employees in fits of rage, and allegedly threatening to deport an engineer for raising a critical safety issue.
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