According to information posted on a Los Angeles County website, at least 132 employees at the Southern California headquarters of SpaceX tested positive for the coronaviruses. It was the highest number of cases reported by private companies.
The outbreak began as a wave of infections spread throughout the country, driven mainly by the Omicron virus variant, and also as the private space company founded and led by Musk is conducting a rapid series of rocket launches at sites in California and Florida.
Thousands of employees work at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., to build and manufacture rockets. Private companies and governments use the rockets to put satellites into space, while NASA uses the capsule to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. The company's mission control room, where engineers are frequently shown during live video streams of launches, is located in Hawthorne.
The outbreak at the headquarters was reported by The Los Angeles Times, which was based on data from the Los Angeles County public health department.
On Sunday, the company broke a company record by launching a Turkish satellite to space from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in just 18 hours after launching 52 of its Starlink internet satellites. The weather in Florida is not favorable for Tuesday's mission, which will send a cargo capsule full of supplies and research to the space station for NASA.
A request for comment was not returned.
During the earlier phase of the coronaviruses, Mr. Musk was against restrictions in California meant to stop the spread of the coronaviruses. In May of last year, Mr. Musk disobeyed a public health order and resumed production at the company's factory despite restrictions that would have prevented employees from working.
On the day after Thanksgiving this year, Mr. Musk sent emails to employees of his company, urging them to work through engineering challenges related to the development of the company's next-generation rocket.
NASA had to delay the European-Russian mission to Mars by a year because of the Pandemic, costing the agency nearly $3 billion in delays. In May 2020, the company will resume astronaut launches from American soil.
Mr. Musk was precluded from attending a launch of four astronauts to space for NASA from the Kennedy Space Center after he tested positive for the virus in November 2020.
