4 comments

  • amatecha7 hours ago
    Also covered at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investigatewest.org&#x2F;a-starlink-lab-exposed-unsuspecting-workers-to-toxic-chemicals-records-show-spacex-didnt-act-until-the-state-got-involved&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investigatewest.org&#x2F;a-starlink-lab-exposed-unsus...</a> which appears to be the source
    • jimnotgym1 hour ago
      &gt;It fined the company $6,000.<p>Less than SpaceX spent a lawyers to appeal it. Less than the cost of ventilation.<p>I guess you can look forward to that happening again then!<p>Pro-tip, join a Trade Union, your country doesn&#x27;t protect you
    • SilverElfin7 hours ago
      &gt; Starting in 2024, customer support workers reported symptoms that matched the known toxic effects of exposure to several chemicals used in the lab. Douglas Altshuler, a former Starlink customer support associate who lived with Crohn’s disease, experienced an allergic reaction that caused one of his eyes to swell shut. A doctor later attributed his condition to “an unknown chemical exposure,” according to a complaint he submitted to Labor &amp; Industries. SpaceX also received more than two dozen other internal complaints from workers who reported headaches, eye irritation and allergic reactions. Altshuler’s complaint said that he was concerned the chemicals caused two women in the customer support office to have miscarriages and another man to have a liver transplant. InvestigateWest spoke with several former workers who confirmed that at least one woman miscarried. The man who allegedly had a liver transplant could not be reached for this story.<p>This is pretty scary. Who knows what other health problems employees have are related to this issue. And SpaceX won’t comment or share what chemicals were involved? Horrible.
      • Reason0774 hours ago
        The Redmond facility apparently works on Starlink satellites, which (unlike Dragon spacecraft) do not use toxic propellants like Hydrazine. Hydrazine is very nasty stuff and even trace exposure can cause eye irritation and conjunctivitis.<p>In any case, it seems strange that customer support staff, who are presumably not trained in haz-mat protocols etc, would be colocated with a lab using toxic chemicals.
      • amatecha7 hours ago
        Yeah, I found this article about that guy as well, pretty disturbing <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gizmodo.com&#x2F;spacex-employee-with-crohns-says-he-was-fired-for-needing-the-bathroom-too-often-2000601495" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gizmodo.com&#x2F;spacex-employee-with-crohns-says-he-was-...</a>
      • weregiraffe6 hours ago
        [flagged]
  • Veserv6 hours ago
    Say it is not so. Company that likes illegally discharging wastewater [1][2] run by man who leads companies to dump toxic waste into city water systems as soon as the inspectors leave [3][4][5] with a company that has multiple times the industry-average injury rate and actively sought to bury it by ignoring mandatory reporting requirements for multiple years [6] defends and denies poor safety practices that expose workers to dangerous chemicals and fires them for the audacity to complain about illegal unsafe working conditions.<p>This repeated pattern of illegal, safety-regressive behavior must be a fluke. Frankly, if the leadership creates cultures that harm their workers and where retaliation against workers was normal, then you would expect that to occur at other companies they run. Like, some kind of successful lawsuit where workers complained about their supervisors calling all their black coworkers the N-word and all the swastikas on the walls then were reprimanded for bringing it up [7] where the judge legally declared the companies &quot;conduct was reprehensible and repeated&quot;[8] and awards in excess of the standard maximum were &quot;appropriate in light of the endemic racism at the Tesla factory and Tesla&#x27;s repeated failure to rectify it&quot;[9].<p>See, the rampant disregard for their workers and retaliation against workers is not at all in their corporate DNA all the way to the top. Just your regular old California Bay Area company where workers are called the N-word [10] and get retaliated against.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;payloadspace.com&#x2F;spacex-back-up-to-its-neck-in-discharged-wastewater&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;payloadspace.com&#x2F;spacex-back-up-to-its-neck-in-disch...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sacurrent.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;federal-government-fines-elon-musks-spacex-148000-over-environmental-issues-35554176&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sacurrent.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;federal-government-fines-elon...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;08&#x2F;boring-company-drilling-fluid-fine-wastewater-elon-musk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;08&#x2F;boring-company-drilling-fluid...</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;12&#x2F;elon-musk-boring-company-tunnels-injuries-osha-citations-fines-rescinded-nevada-governor-office-documents-altered&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;12&#x2F;elon-musk-boring-company-tunn...</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.documentcloud.org&#x2F;documents&#x2F;26184164-tbc-state-letter&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.documentcloud.org&#x2F;documents&#x2F;26184164-tbc-state-l...</a><p>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;investigates&#x2F;special-report&#x2F;spacex-musk-safety&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;investigates&#x2F;special-report&#x2F;spacex-m...</a><p>[7] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;app&#x2F;details&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748-7&#x2F;context" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;app&#x2F;details&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...</a><p>[8] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;pkg&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748-12.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;pkg&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...</a> Page 29<p>[9] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;pkg&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06748-12.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govinfo.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;pkg&#x2F;USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06...</a> Page 1<p>[10] I mean seriously, where do you even find people who will use the N-word in the Bay Area. Did they put all their job ads in the KKK and Neo-Nazi Bay Area Facebook groups? Is it like one of those anti-spy tests where you have people say: &quot;Death to (insert country leader here)&quot;, but you have to use the N-word to get hired?
    • SlightlyLeftPad3 hours ago
      Having personally known one of the people who would have said that and possibly named in the complaint and ultimately fired (far too late imho), many were relocated from other parts of the country including the Mid-west.
  • water-data-dude6 hours ago
    Ok, but fascinatingly I got hit with a popup for a Fox News browser add-on that makes it so you can &quot;trust your search results&quot;
  • apolloartemis5 hours ago
    I am a huge fan of SpaceX and I think that establishing a multi-planetary civilization is the most important thing to do, and, I’ll say bluntly, will save lives. But I think that knowingly causing miscarriage of a pregnancy should be investigated as manslaughter.
    • nicoty4 hours ago
      I know I&#x27;ll sound like a rube but somehow it rubs me the wrong way that the rich and powerful are spending billions trying to establish multiplanetary civilisations despite the fact that we still have plenty of unfixed problems here at home that also deserve attention and resources, if not more so.
      • adastra224 hours ago
        It&#x27;s not either&#x2F;or, and you shouldn&#x27;t reduce things to false dichotomies.
        • mikelitoris2 hours ago
          It is though, when you have a fixed budget, even at planetary scales.
          • adastra221 hour ago
            Are we still talking about private enterprises, not space agencies?
            • jimnotgym1 hour ago
              They are indeed private companies, being subsidised by space agencies.
              • sokoloff37 minutes ago
                Are they being subsidized the same way my employer subsidizes my lifestyle?<p>If I sell steel, grain, boots, or launch services to the government and that gives me profits that I invest into some aspect of my business, I’m not sure that “subsidized by” is the clearest term.
      • saubeidl1 hour ago
        It&#x27;s even worse than that: They&#x27;re messing up the environment we do have by burning tons of fuel in pursuit of their pipe dreams.<p>Instead of establishing multiplanetary civilisations, they&#x27;re burning our single-planetary atmosphere in their hubris and ego.
      • foxglacier3 hours ago
        It&#x27;s probably more because of the news than the world. It&#x27;s not possible for there <i>not</i> to be plenty of unfixed problems. No matter how many problems we solve -- and we&#x27;ve solved a hell of a lot over the past decades or century -- other existing problems will take their place as seeming to be important.<p>If I&#x27;m being too extreme, can you describe a world where you&#x27;d consider enough problems have been solved that it&#x27;s worth spending billions colonizing space?
      • bravetraveler4 hours ago
        I can&#x27;t believe that pipedream being anything <i>but</i> the largest company town. Who needs Scrip when you have to work for... every vital resource, even air?<p>Not Rube-ish or rubish at all, IMO. I believe they&#x27;re more interested in power or recreational drug use than problem-solving. Horses for courses.
      • darubedarob2 hours ago
        [dead]
    • jonesjohnson2 hours ago
      you know what would save lives?<p>If the top 1% would spend 1% of their wealth on preventing &quot;low-hanging fruits&quot; like<p><pre><code> * children starving * children dying from diseases whose vaccinations cost 1$ * educating people on things like STDs, etc </code></pre> You call &quot;knowingly causing miscarriage&quot; manslaughter, but boy have you looked at what &quot;we&quot; (&quot;first world&quot;) are causing elsewhere in a global scale?
      • sokoloff30 minutes ago
        &gt; children dying from diseases whose vaccinations cost 1$<p>If there’s a government anywhere that isn’t providing this for its citizens, perhaps looking into why that government is such a failure would yield more durable change than a point patch of just a few vaccines.<p>&gt; If the top 1% would spend 1% of their wealth<p>Why should we expect&#x2F;demand more generosity from only 1% of the population? Maybe everyone should spend 1% of their wealth on these efforts? It’s easy to be magnanimous with someone else’s wallet.
    • itsyonas3 hours ago
      &gt; I am a huge fan of SpaceX and I think that establishing a multi-planetary civilization is the most important thing to do, and, I’ll say bluntly, will save lives.<p>How can we credibly talk about saving lives on other planets when we are demonstrably unable to protect life on the only habitable world we actually have? If we are failing at basic stewardship here, what evidence is there that we would act more responsibly anywhere else?
    • thrance1 hour ago
      How would sending a few dozen people to the subzero anoxic radioactive and sterile desert known as Mars help Humanity? Would be cool, don&#x27;t get me wrong, but utterly useless for anything other than scientific research.
      • foxglacier1 hour ago
        That&#x27;s why Musk&#x27;s plan it to send a lot more so they can keep the human species going if human life on earth is destroyed by, say, a meteorite.
        • thrance1 hour ago
          Sure, his ketamin-addled brain has been promising us that there would be millions of humans on Mars very soon for years now. That doesn&#x27;t make it real. And that does not explain either how they&#x27;d survive, or even how they&#x27;d get there in the first place. Sending one ship to Mars is something, sending thousands is unfeasible in this century.<p>Also, I don&#x27;t believe they&#x27;d ever be auto-sufficient, because of the aforementioned qualities of Mars: anoxic, sterile, radioactive and subzero. They&#x27;d certainly never thrive. More probably, they&#x27;d live in a kind of inescapable company-town, millions of miles away from the nearest jurisdiction, at the mercy of a guy known for brutalizing his workers, where going on strike means you probably just die. Sounds like absolute hell.<p>So, unfeasible, unrealistic, pointless. You can do much more good for humanity by investing here on Earth, obviously.
    • NedF4 hours ago
      [dead]
    • foxglacier4 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • seg_lol4 hours ago
        What does that have to do with causing someone else to miscarry?
        • RobRivera3 hours ago
          &gt;But I think that knowingly causing miscarriage of a pregnancy should be investigated as manslaughter.<p>A) op didnt clarify who was doing the initiation of a miscarriage. There&#x27;s unclarified ambiguity.<p>B) charging manslaughter for one person, and providing medical support for another for the same action of facilitating a miscarriage enters a very real legal discourse know as the entire debate around women&#x27;s rights. If you would like to know more you can review the legal precedents associated therein.
    • RobRivera4 hours ago
      Are you advocating for prolife policy, and advocating for a woman to lose her right to choose?
    • exomonk3 hours ago
      SpaceX is NOT about going to Mars, it&#x27;s about Golden Dome. Always was.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_system)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...</a>
      • JumpCrisscross1 hour ago
        This is a particularly-dumb conspiracy theory as far as these go. It’s like arguing Ford was founded to build tanks.