CALIFORNIA
\nA lawyer for Tesla told a US appeals court that a 2018 tweet by chief executive Elon Musk suggesting factory workers would lose stock options if they unionized was not an unlawful threat, because it simply reflected the position of the union.
\nThe tweet came amid the United Auto Workers (UAW) union\u2019s years-long campaign to organize workers at Tesla\u2019s factory in Fremont, California. It said: \u201cNothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?\u201d
\nForeign media reported that two days after the initial tweet, Musk said in a separate Twitter thread that it was the UAW, and not the company, that opposed stock options.
\nIn March, Tesla appealed an order by the NLRB that Musk delete the tweet. According to a judge, the labor board wasn\u2019t \u201ccompletely out of line,\u201d as Musk\u2019s tweet could be interpreted as a message that \u201cthe price you will have to pay if you unionize is you\u2019ll give up your stock options.\u201d
\nTesla attorney David Salmons told the hearing the other day that the constitutional right to free speech under the First Amendment \u201cprotects an employer\u2019s robust speech about the downsides to unionization.\u201d Taken in context, the tweet is really a \u201cstatement about what the union, not the company, will or will not do,\u201d he said.
\nMusk has a long history of controversial tweets, which has led to lawsuits. Tesla is facing a suit from investors over another 2018 post by the CEO, in which he said funding was secured to take the company private.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CALIFORNIA A lawyer for Tesla told a US appeals court that a 2018 tweet by chief executive Elon Musk suggesting factory workers would lose stock options if they unionized was not an unlawful threat, because it simply reflected the position of the union. The tweet came amid the United Auto Workers (UAW) union\u2019s years-long campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-242705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\n