In 2018, Elon Musk implied that Tesla employees would lose their stock options if they unionized. Now, the federal government decided that he broke the law.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced on Thursday that the electric automaker Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk violated federal labor law, and ruled that Musk has to delete an anti-union tweet from 2018. In this case, Musk had discouraged Tesla workers against unionizing within the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) by implying that they would lose their stock options for doing so, and Tesla also fired an employee who helped lead the push to organize the workforce. It’s been a years-long process to reach this point, Bloomberg reports, and the decision could have a major impact on how Tesla treats its team going forward.