Down Angle Symbol A symbol in the form of an angle pointing downwards. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Antonio Masiello via Getty Images
- Elon Musk is not happy with the way the media reported an accident involving his factory's robots.
- “Really shameful for the media to highlight an injury from two years ago,” Musk continued X.
- Musk said the reports incorrectly suggested that the accident was caused by his humanoid Optimus robots.
Elon Musk has sharply criticized recent media reports of a robot “attack” at a Tesla factory in Austin.
“It is truly shameful for the media to highlight an injury from two years ago due to a simple industrial Kuka robotic arm (found in all factories) and insinuate that it is now due to Optimus,” Musk wrote in one X contribution On Wednesday.
The Tesla CEO responded to an X user who shared a Chron report on Tuesday about a 2021 factory robot incident.
The Information also covered the incident in a story published last month. According to the outlet, two witnesses said an engineer was performing software updates for the factory's robots when he was grabbed by one of the machines and pushed to the surface.
The witnesses also said that the engineer was bleeding after the robot sank its claws into his body. According to The Information, the engineer eventually escaped the robot's clutches when another worker pressed the emergency stop button.
However, Musk's anger over the Chron's post appears to be because the newspaper acted on the incident. The Chron story used a thumbnail of Tesla's humanoid Optimus robot – not the Kuka robotic arm that was involved in the 2021 incident.
Musk's defense of the Optimus robots will come as no surprise as he has high hopes for them. When he introduced them last year, he said the economy could become “quasi-infinite” if the Optimus robots were capable of manual labor.
“This means a future of abundance. A future in which there is no poverty, in which you can have whatever products and services you want,” Musk said at the time.
However, safety complaints have long plagued Musk's Tesla factories. In 2020, California regulators said Tesla sent them incomplete reports about factory accidents.
And it's not just the US. Recently, in April, Chinese inspectors said they wanted to penalize the company for safety deficiencies, according to Caixin Global. According to the report, a Tesla factory worker in Shanghai died after being crushed by factory equipment.
In October, Tesla rejected claims from a German union and the country's media that the Berlin Gigfactory lacked adequate safety regulations.
Representatives for Tesla and Kuka did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment outside of regular business hours.
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