A Tesla engineer was injured when he was attacked by a robot at the company's Giga Texas factory, leaving behind a "trail of blood," according to reports.
The incident happened in November 2021, when the robot "pushed its claws" into the victim's body, causing lacerations on his back and arm. He escaped after a coworker hit the emergency stop button.
The engineer was running software updates on the robots, which are used to cut and move aluminum car parts, when he was grabbed by one of the machines, according to witness accounts published by The Information and Daily Mail. The robot had accidentally been left on and struck the victim while carrying out its normal motions. After being released from the robot's grasp, the worker fell a couple feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminum, leaving behind a "trail of blood."
According to the reports, the engineer's injuries did not require any time off work for recovery. An incident report filed with Travis County and federal regulators described the attack in slim detail, saying the engineer suffered a "laceration, cut, open wound" and that the "cause object" was a "robot," the Daily Mail reported.
Tesla has not commented on the reports. In a post on X, CEO Elon Musk slammed characterizations of the event as an "attack."
"Truly shameful of the media to dredge up an injury from two years ago due to a simple industrial Kuka robot arm (found in all factories) and imply that it is due to Optimus now," Musk said, referring to the company's humanoid robot currently under development.