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Tesla’s health clinic surgeon explains practice amid Reveal’s new allegations
Last Monday, an expose was published accusing Tesla of intentionally ignoring workers’ injuries. Citing former employees and a physician assistant who briefly worked in the company’s health clinic at the Fremont factory, Reveal, a publication that prides itself with its investigative reporting, accused Tesla of withholding medical care to its workers, to minimize how many injuries the company includes in its official records.
The new expose is not the first time Reveal trained its sights on the electric car maker. Earlier this year, the publication, based on accounts from former employees, accused Tesla of misreporting injury rates and ignoring safety concerns due to the whims of executives like Elon Musk. The publication’s allegations ultimately resulted in an investigation by the CAL-OSHA, which lasted four months. As noted by VP for Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Laurie Shelby during the third quarter earnings call and in a following blog post in Tesla’s official website, the CAL-OSHA investigation found no misreporting on Tesla’s part. The CAL-OSHA did find one safety issue and one record-keeping error during its four month-long investigation, in the form of an extension cord that was categorized as a trip hazard and an injury log that had an incorrect date.
Apart from doubling down on previous allegations — such as Tesla’s factories lacking hazard signs due to Elon Musk’s dislike of the color yellow — Reveal‘s new expose, written by journalist Will Evans, related several accounts of workers being denied proper medical care. One such instance involved a worker who severed the top of a finger being sent to the emergency room in a Lyft, as well as an employee who was asked to report to work even after being injured in the Model X line. The publication also alleged that  Tesla forbids employees to call 911 without a doctor’s permission. Former PA Anna Watson, who worked in Tesla’s Fremont health clinic for about three weeks, noted that Tesla’s employees are paying the price for the company’s unsafe practices. Watson further alleged that she was terminated by Access Omnicare after raising safety concerns.
“The goal of the clinic was to keep as many patients off of the books as possible. The way they were implementing it was very out of control. Every company that I’ve worked at is motivated to keep things not recordable. But I’ve never seen anybody do it at the expense of treating the patient,” she said.
The publication’s new allegations have emerged as a dark cloud hovering over Tesla’s revamped workers’ safety programs, which have been at the forefront of the company as it continues to ramp its operations. Since hiring VP for Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Laurie Shelby last year, Tesla has actively rolled out new initiatives to raise the level of safety for its facilities’ amidst the company’s ever-increasing number of workers. Shelby, for one, has noted that Tesla remains focused on its efforts to become the safest car factory in the world.
Tesla is yet to respond to Reveal‘s new report, though a spokesperson from the company noted that Watson completed a total of five shifts before her employment was terminated. Dr. Basil Besh, an orthopedic surgeon and founder of Access Omnicare, has also issued a statement explaining the company’s practices when dealing with workers’ injuries. Besh, who currently serves as the chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Board of Councilors (BOC), noted that the care that Access Omnicare gives to Tesla’s employees is the same care he gives to his personal clientele. The orthopedic surgeon noted that he had spoken to Reveal journalist Will Evans about the safety practices in the Fremont factory.
“I spent nearly one hour with Reveal detailing Tesla’s decision earlier this year to bring me and my medical team on site at Fremont, providing its employees with state-of-the-art occupational and musculoskeletal health care. I detailed our vision for exemplary patient care, and I gave specific examples of protocol improvements and subsequent successes in outcomes in only four short months, including accurate diagnoses and reducing needless delays for advanced testing and treatment. I patiently educated Will Evans on how Tesla allowed me to give the same care to Tesla employees that I do to my private patients including ones who are professional athletes, with the ability to get necessary testing and treatment in a timely manner without being hindered by an often cumbersome California Worker’s Compensation System that sometimes negatively effects injured workers.”
Dr. Besh further noted that different types of injuries require different types of immediate care. The medical professional also denies that any malpractice is ongoing in the Tesla factory.
“I counseled Will on the difference between subjective complaints of pain, which cannot be proven and are often magnified, and objective signs found only on careful clinical examination by an experienced physician. I even mailed Will a copy of a relevant chapter from the American Medical Association Return to Work Guidelines and offered to make myself available for additional questions. Research and evidence-based medicine indicate that deconditioning injuries involving sore muscles should not be treated with inactivity as this only exacerbates the problem, but should instead be treated by proactive conditioning, ergonomic modifications, and supportive care. Not all patients in pain should be off work, at home, and on opioids. In fact, it is most often in these patients’ best interest to have supportive care that enhances their activity, their function, and their well-being.
“As a physician, my foremost obligation is to perform a careful history and physical examination, order additional tests when clinically indicated, make an accurate diagnosis, and deliver the absolute best care possible. If patients are injured, and continued work presents safety issues for the patient, myself and my fellow physicians prescribe the appropriate work restrictions. Any suggestion that myself or any of my medical team at AOC allow external factors to influence our medical care in any way is false and inaccurate.”
Ultimately, Dr. Besh also pointed out that ambulances are reserved for life or limb-threatening injuries. The surgeon did not provide a direct comment about former physician assistant Anna Watson, due to the latter being the subject of an ongoing investigation by the California Medical Board.
“Rather than deliver an informative and balanced piece of journalism, Reveal has instead chosen to hitch its wagon to Ms. Anna Watson, a provider with whom we severed ties after less than two weeks at our clinic and about whom I cannot provide any additional comment as she is currently the subject of an investigation by the California Medical Board. Instead of highlighting the tremendous progress being made in both patient safety and patient care at Tesla, this report uses poor sourcing to tell a story consistent with a predetermined agenda,” Dr. Besh stated.Â
Tesla’s dreams of operating a fully autonomous ride-hailing platform just took a massive step toward reality, as two separate events have indicated the company is perhaps closer than ever to achieving self-driving as a product.
On Thursday, Tesla was granted authorization by the State of Texas to operate driverless vehicles in a commercial manner. On May 28, Senate Bill 2807, passed by the 89th Texas Legislature, took effect after being passed back on September 1, 2025.
The bill establishes a statewide regulatory framework requiring authorization from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles for companies to operate automated vehicles commercially on Texas roads.
This covers driverless, or SAE Level 4+, operations for passenger transport, meaning Robotaxi, or freight.
Tesla and other companies can self-certify their vehicles and tech as long as they:
- Operate in compliance with Texas traffic laws
- Maintain proper registration, title, and insurance
- Use compliant automated driving systems
- Record onboard activity and handle system failures and glitches safely.
The new authorization, which was first reported by James Stephenson on X, allows companies to utilize their own processes to determine if their vehicles are ready to operate without drivers.
🚨BREAKING:
Tesla has been authorized by the State of Texas to operate driverless vehicles commercially under the new law that took effect today, May 28th, 2026. Tesla has officially self-certified the software running on its robotaxis as Level 4. $TSLA pic.twitter.com/KSJdsvlaW5— James Stephenson (@ICannot_Enough) May 28, 2026
It is a rule that expedites the entire approval process, keeping agencies out of a usually long, lengthy, and frustrating task that is essential to technological advancements. It essentially means Tesla can launch commercial Robotaxi operations at this point.
On the very same day, Tesla continued the momentum as CEO Elon Musk shared a video of Cybercab units autonomously driving off the property at Gigafactory Texas. This is a major step in the story of the Cybercab.
Mass production of the Cybercab started at Giga Texas in April, and it is already heading out of the factory on its own.
Cybercab driving itself out of the GigaTexas factory pic.twitter.com/EwAMVVDjYy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2026
These two major events mark a drastic step forward in Tesla’s progress toward Cybercab and the permissions it needs to operate a self-driving ride-hailing service. Tesla is now able to operate autonomously under Texas law by self-certifying, and with the potentially imminent rollout of Cybercab, Tesla’s autonomous dreams are starting to take serious shape.
Elon Musk
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Tesla and SpaceX may be closer to merging than Wall Street or either company is admitting.
Elon Musk has reportedly discussed merging Tesla and SpaceX with people close to him, according to CNBC, which cited sources familiar with the conversation. Tesla employees have long expected such a transaction and the topic is openly discussed internally, according to internal sources. With SpaceX is days away from kicking off its Wall Street roadshow for what could be the largest IPO in market history, this would be the first time the company will have public market currency to execute a stock-for-stock deal with Tesla.
The financial logic for a merger would make sense. A combined SpaceX and Tesla would create a conglomerate spanning rockets, satellites, electric vehicles, AI infrastructure, and energy storage valued at roughly $3.35 trillion to $3.6 trillion based on SpaceX’s IPO target range and Tesla’s current market capitalization. The two companies are already more intertwined than most people realize. SpaceX bought $697 million worth of Tesla Megapack systems for xAI data centers and $131 million worth of Cybertrucks. Tesla invested $2 billion in xAI, which subsequently merged with SpaceX. Past transactions also include Tesla selling solar equipment and parts to SpaceX, and SpaceX helping with Cybertruck materials.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Musk himself signaled where this was heading in November 2025 when he posted on X, “My companies are, surprisingly in some ways, trending towards convergence.” Tesla and SpaceX announced a joint semiconductor fabrication facility in Austin called Terafab on the Gigafactory Texas campus, covering two advanced chip factories, with one serving Tesla’s AI needs for vehicles and Optimus robots, the other targeting space-based data centers under SpaceX’s infrastructure vision.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives places the probability of a merger at 80% to 90% with a target completion in the first half of 2027. The mechanics of a deal became possible the moment SpaceX filed its S-1. Legal experts said a merger likely would not spark antitrust issues but would raise concerns among shareholders in each company, with questions around which company would be the parent, how a stock swap would take place, and who determines the appropriate price. Musk holds about 20% of Tesla’s equity but controls 85.1% of SpaceX’s voting power through a super-voting share class, meaning he would largely be negotiating the terms with himself.
Not everyone is convinced the timing is imminent. Traders on Kalshi place only 33% odds that a merger will happen before May 2027. The more immediate concern for Tesla shareholders is whether the SpaceX IPO pulls capital and Musk’s attention away from Tesla before any merger consolidates the upside for both.
What is clear is that the structural groundwork is already being laid. The Terafab announcement, the xAI merger, the shared supply chain, the cross-company balance sheet transactions, and now the IPO all point in the same direction. Whether the merger follows in 2027 or later, the two companies are already operating more like divisions of a single entity than independent competitors.
Elon Musk
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
The Space Force just handed SpaceX $2.29 billion to build the military’s space internet backbone.
The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion contract on May 26, 2026 to build the backbone of its Space Data Network, a satellite-based communications system designed to keep American military forces connected anywhere on Earth in real time. The contract is firm-fixed-price and requires SpaceX to deliver a fully operational prototype by the end of 2027.
In plain terms, the SDN Backbone is the plumbing behind the military’s space-based internet. It functions as a low Earth orbit satellite constellation providing robust, high-capacity, and low-latency data transport for the Joint Force, connecting sensors and weapons systems continuously, globally, and securely. Think of it as a private, hardened version of Starlink built specifically for battlefield communications, one that soldiers, ships, and aircraft can rely on even in contested environments where ground-based networks have been disrupted.
SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket
The Space Force was direct about why SpaceX was selected. “The SDN Backbone leverages the best of commercial innovation and delivers a strong foundation for the SDN mission set — a huge benefit and enabler for our warfighters,” said USSF Col. Ryan Frazier.
“We aren’t trading speed for scale; we are demanding both. By using rapid prototyping and Other Transaction Authorities, we are ensuring our advanced solutions are integrated and delivered to the warfighter as fast as possible,” added USSF Lt. Col. Fry, SDN Backbone system program manager.
The SDN Backbone will work alongside the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer, with the two systems forming a unified open architecture to provide critical data transport for current and future Department of War missions.
As Teslarati has reported, this is not SpaceX’s first Space Force contract of 2026. In April, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $178.5 million to launch missile tracking satellites, and SpaceX is already embedded in the Golden Dome missile defense software group. The $2.29 billion SDN Backbone award puts SpaceX at the center of how the American military communicates in space, a position with direct implications for its reported $1.75 trillion IPO valuation as the company heads toward a public offering as early as June 2026.
Tesla’s Robotaxi dreams just took a massive step toward reality
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
