SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla’s Bay Area production plant recorded hundreds of COVID-19 cases following CEO Elon Musk’s defiant reopening of the plant last May, according to county-level data obtained by a legal transparency website.

The document, obtained by the website PlainSite following a court ruling this year, showed Tesla received around 10 reports of COVID-19 in May when the plant reopened, and saw a steady rise in cases all the way up to 125 in December, as the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked around the country.

The revelation follows The Washington Post’s reporting in June that there had been multiple positive COVID-19 cases reported at Tesla’s facilities in Fremont, Calif., after Musk decided to reopen despite a countywide shelter-in-place order, daring officials to arrest him.

The data, covering the months from May to December, showed there were around 450 total reported cases. Roughly 10,000 workers work at the plant.

For nearly a year, the Alameda County Public Health Department, which is where Fremont is located, argued it could not release data on the number of cases under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which grants privacy over health records.

As part of an agreement struck in mid-May allowing Tesla to reopen, Tesla was required to report positive cases to the Alameda County Public Health Department. Despite around 10 positive cases in May, according to the data, the health department told The Post in early June there were no known cases of workplace infections affecting county residents.

Tesla and the Alameda County Public Health Department and representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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