NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 2018 tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk illegally threatened Tesla employees with the loss of stock options if they chose to be represented by a union, a federal appeals court ruled Friday .
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a March 2021 order by the National Labor Relations Board ordering the deletion of the tweet. The case arose out of organizing efforts by the United Auto Workers at a Tesla facility in Fremont, California.
It also upheld the board’s order that Tesla reinstate and pay back an employee who was fired for union organizing.
Musk tweeted on May 20, 2018: “Nothing is stopping the Tesla team at our car plant from voting to join the union. He could modify it if he wanted to. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2x better than when the facility was UAW and everyone is already receiving medical care.
The ruling said that “because the stock options are part of Tesla’s employee compensation and nothing in the tweet suggests that Tesla was forced to end the stock options or that the UAW was the cause of the relinquishment of the stock options, the evidence supports the NLRB in the litigation.” conclusion that the tweet is an implied threat to terminate stock options in retaliation for unionization.”
The UAW and Richard Ortiz, the worker whose reinstatement was ordered, praised the decision. “I look forward to returning to Tesla and working with my colleagues to finish the job of forming a union,” Ortiz said in a UAW email.
“This is a major victory for workers who have the courage to stand up and organize in a system that is currently heavily favored by employers like Tesla who have no qualms about breaking the law,” said Mike Miller, director regional 6 UAW
Tesla did not respond to emailed requests for comment Friday afternoon.
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