One of the largest federations of unions and several former officials of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration have raised concerns about the possibility that Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency could potentially gain access to sensitive information shared with OSHA and the Department of Labor by whistleblowers at the centibillionaire’s companies.
While Musk serves as a “special government employee” in the Trump administration, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company are the subject of more than 50 ongoing workplace health and safety cases opened by OSHA in the past five years, according to a public database maintained by the agency. OSHA sits within the Department of Labor, where DOGE operatives have been working since at least March 18.
In a memo shared exclusively with WIRED, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which is currently suing the Trump administration over DOGE’s access to records at the Department of Labor, says they believe that the news reports and OSHA cases in its memo allegedly illustrate “gross mistreatment and even abuse of workers” at Musk companies in five different states. In the memo, the union federation alleges that as Musk attempts to exert “unilateral control” over the federal government through DOGE, “his record as a boss should be of concern to every worker in America.”
Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, OSHA, and the Department of Labor did not respond to requests for comment.
There’s currently no public evidence to suggest that Musk or DOGE has accessed confidential files at OSHA. But the fact that DOGE has tried to seek access to other potentially sensitive databases at the Department of Labor and a number of other federal agencies worries both the AFL-CIO and former OSHA administrators.
Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary of OSHA under President Barack Obama, tells WIRED that “no company who is being cited by OSHA or investigated by OSHA” should obtain the ability to access the agency’s “internal and confidential files.”
In a March 29 court filing, lawyers representing the Trump administration in the AFL-CIO’s lawsuit said that DOGE operative Marko Elez currently has read access to four record systems at the Department of Labor, including a database for managing employee access to federal buildings and systems, and another for keeping track of unemployment benefit claims. The filing states that Elez “has not accessed any of the systems,” but has installed Python and a tool for editing software code at the agency.
Tesla is currently the subject of one active OSHA investigation, according to the public database, meaning OSHA has yet to issue a citation or dismiss the case. The case was opened last month in response to an unspecified “safety” complaint about a Tesla facility in Lathrop, California.
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Since April 2020, OSHA has issued 46 citations to Tesla—for a variety of allegations, including claims of violating OSHA safety regulations, failing workplace inspections, or because a worker was injured at the facility—more than half of which Tesla is currently disputing. During that same time period, OSHA had six investigations that resulted in citations to SpaceX and three to the Boring Company, a tunnel construction company founded by Musk.
In the memo, the AFL-CIO highlights some two dozen accidents and alleged safety issues reported at Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company since 2016 as the basis for its concern, some of which were the subject of recent OSHA investigations. In one incident reported to OSHA last year, a licensed electrician named Victor Joe Gomez Sr. was electrocuted and killed after being instructed to inspect electrical panels at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, that OSHA determined had not been properly disconnected beforehand. (The case remains open, as Tesla is actively disputing it.)
Two separate OSHA citations at other Tesla factories involved fingertip amputations. At a SpaceX facility in 2022, an employee “suffered a skull fracture and head trauma and was hospitalized in a coma for months,” according to the final OSHA accident report, after experiencing what the agency described as a technical problem with a newly automated piece of machinery. SpaceX did not contest its OSHA citation and $18,475 fine.
Liz Shuler, the president of AFL-CIO, claims that a number of Tesla workers have repeatedly alleged to the federation that safety isn’t prioritized at the car company. The AFL-CIO works with the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), but it does not represent employees at Tesla or SpaceX.
“There are clearly some serious safety hazards in their facilities,” Debbie Berkowitz, former chief of staff and a senior adviser at OSHA under Obama, alleges, referring to Tesla.
After OSHA issues a citation, employers have the right to challenge it, and Tesla does this often, according to the agency’s public database. Of the 46 Tesla cases in which OSHA issued citations over the past five years, the memo cites 27 that remain open because the car company is actively disputing them with the agency. Two SpaceX cases and one Boring Company case remain open for the same reason. The cases can’t be closed until both OSHA and the companies agree on the terms of the citation, which may include associated fines and specific changes the company has to make to improve worker safety.
David Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor for OSHA under Obama, tells WIRED that, in general, big companies typically don’t have a financial incentive to challenge OSHA citations, since they usually are accompanied by fines costing only a few thousand dollars. However, a company isn’t required to address the specific hazard that led to an accident until after a case is closed. In order to avoid addressing these alleged problems, Michaels says that generally, some companies may be motivated to keep cases open.
“Some employers decide they don't want to abate the hazard, they don't agree with the citation, and they will spend many, many thousands of dollars fighting the case, and it'll cost them far more than simply paying a small fine and abating the hazard,” Michaels says.
There is currently no evidence that Musk has access to any confidential databases at the Department of Labor that may contain personal information about whistleblowers. But former OSHA administrators say the agency does house records that would anonymize whistleblowers, as well as employees who participated in anonymous interviews with agency investigators.
Berkowitz says her fear is that someone with this amount of access could be able to identify every whistleblower who has contributed to an OSHA investigation into one of his companies. Michaels adds that, generally speaking, there is “a very significant concern” that whistleblowers who have their identities revealed would be subject to retaliation or intimidation.
“If those were released to the employer, workers could suffer retaliation, and while that retaliation is absolutely forbidden by law, it's very difficult for OSHA to protect those workers,” Michaels says.
Shuler tells WIRED that whistleblowers speak out about their companies at great personal risk, and that she is extremely concerned that their anonymity and safety won’t be preserved. “It's, to me, an abomination in terms of the checks and balances that we've put in place into these systems,” Shuler says. “Knowing that our government has trust, that we've been able to get workers to trust that their government will keep them safe, and now we have an unelected billionaire basically disrupting that sense of security.”
Musk has at least twice discussed retaliating against people who leaked information in recent years. In March, Musk said that he would “look forward to the prosecutions” of Pentagon workers after information was leaked to journalists. At X, Musk threatened to sue employees who violated their nondisclosure agreements.
The future of OSHA under the Trump administration more broadly remains unclear. Rebecca Reindel, director of occupational safety and health for the AFL-CIO and a member of OSHA’s National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health since 2022, tells WIRED that the group would have normally met twice already by this point in the year, but no meetings have occurred. Her committee was working on crafting guidelines to prevent heat-related injury and illness in the workplace.
In recent weeks, DOGE has canceled the leases of seventeen OSHA area offices, according to a website where the group lists how much money it claims to have saved the federal government. Neither DOGE nor OSHA have said whether these offices will fully close, downsize, or merge with other existing area offices. At least for now, DOGE doesn’t appear to have orchestrated mass firings at OSHA the way it has at many other federal agencies. “We have not seen massive cuts yet,” Reindel says. “We are expecting them to come.”
