Tesla Fremont employees reportedly test positive for COVID-19 infection
Cases might have come after plant was reopened in May
Some Tesla workers at the company’s facility in Fremont reportedly tested positive for coronavirus shortly after the electric carmaker got the go-ahead from Alameda County officials to start up vehicle production at the massive plant in late May.
Two Tesla employees told the Washington Post that company supervisors said some Fremont workers had tested positive for coronavirus and were told to stay home from work. The Post said the Tesla workers it spoke to requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation at their workplace. The report says two workers who tested positive are based at Tesla’s seat manufacturing facility near the main Tesla factory.
Neither Tesla spokespeople nor representatives for the Alameda County Public Health Department returned requests for comment on the matter.
Tesla has had a contentious relationship with Alameda County since a Bay Area-wide shelter-in-place order went into effect in March as part of efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus. Tesla wasn’t included as an essential service under the shelter-in-place edict, but the company still kept its operations running for several days after the order went into effect.
The company halted vehicle production for almost two months until early May, when CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would restart vehicle production in violation of the shelter-inplace order. Musk said he would be on the assembly line with Tesla workers, and dared Alameda County law enforcement officials to arrest him at the Fremont plant.
In mid-May, Tesla and the county reached an agreement that let the company reopen its Fremont plant as long as it implemented social distancing and other methods to reduce the potential for coronavirus spreading around the facility.