I’ve written before about how the Wall Street Journal is essentially two separate publications. The Opinion section worships Elon Musk as a great genius, whose DOGE initiative to dismantle the federal government is a lynch-pin of MAGA. Then there is the news division which often has great investigative reporting on Musk and another oligarchs.
Today the WSJ has a damning report on horrific pollution issues at Tesla’s Giga plant in Texas. A climate of worker intimidation and corruption has resulted in toxic pollutants being dumped into the environment near Austin for months.
The article (gifted) can be accessed here: www.wsj.com/…
The door to the plant’s giant casting furnace, which melts metal to be molded into the Model Y’s parts, wouldn’t shut, spewing toxins into the air and raising temperatures for workers on the floor to as high as 100 degrees. Hazardous wastewater from production—containing paint, oil and other chemicals—was also flowing untreated into the city’s sewer, in violation of state guidelines.
Tesla left the costly problems largely unaddressed during the critical ramp-up. As a result, the company’s 10 million-plus square foot plant—among the largest car factories in the world—dumped toxic pollutants into the environment near Austin for months.
The WSJ discovered that Tesla management was well-aware of the pollution violations but was more concerned with ramping up production at the plant. Any workers who raised concerns were threatened with immediate dismissal.
A Journal investigation shows that Tesla bosses were aware of the problems but sometimes chose short-term fixes to avoid slowing production. Former employees said they feared they might lose their job if they drew attention internally to potential environmental hazards, because senior managers didn’t consider such issues to be mission critical. As head of the company, Musk set the tone, these people said, pushing employees to move fast and complaining frequently in public statements that unnecessary regulations are strangling the U.S.
“Unnecessary Regulations” — that is the rallying cry of Musk and his DOGE initiative. Now he and his sidekick Vivek Ramaswamy will have the power to gut the EPA allow Tesla, SpaceX — indeed all industry — to pollute at will.
“Musk stated on his Twitter/X platform — itself a cesspool of disinformation and porn:
"Tesla exists to help reduce risk of catastrophic climate change, which affects all species on Earth. Even if your faith in humanity is faltering, this is worth caring about. Support makes a difference. Thank you."
Evidently his plan is to destroy the planet before saving it….
