Elon Musk
The appellate judges upheld the earlier ruling, citing the CEO’s tweet as a “tacit threat” aimed at Fremont employees who wanted to join the union
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A US appeals court has ruled that Elon Musk violated federal labor laws by tweeting that Tesla employees would lose stock options if they joined a union.
The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision by the US National Labor Relations Board that the 2018 tweet constituted an unlawful threat that could discourage unionization and ordered Musk to delete it.
Amid an organizing drive by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union at the Tesla plant in Fremont, California, Musk tweeted, “Nothing prevents the Tesla team at our auto plant from voting for unions… But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?” ”
Tesla workers in New York launch campaign to form a union
UAW President Shawn Fain welcomed the decision but said it also highlighted “our broken US labor laws.”
“Here is a company that has clearly broken the law, and yet it takes several years for these workers to achieve a modicum of justice,” Fain said.
Tesla dismissed a lawsuit from investors in February over another Musk tweet from 2018 that said funding had been secured to make the company private; and a British caver unsuccessfully sued Musk for calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.
Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022.
In Friday’s case, Tesla had argued that the tweet about unionization was not a threat and merely reflected the fact that unionized workers from other auto companies do not receive stock options.
But a three-person panel disagreed.
“Substantial evidence supports the NLRB’s conclusion that the tweet is a tacit threat to end stock options in retaliation for unionizing,” the panel wrote.
The Labor Board, in a separate case in 2022, said Tesla violated labor laws by banning workers at the Fremont plant from wearing shirts supporting the union campaign. The company is appealing this decision.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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