Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC, United States, on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency Getty Images
Tesla is asking an appellate court to overturn a federal agency’s order to delete a Twitter post from CEO Elon Musk that discourages union organization.
The National Labor Relations Committee found that a May 2018 tweet from Musk illegally threatened employees with losing stock options if they decided to be represented by a union. The council ordered the removal of the post.
Among other things, the long decision of the board of directors on March 25 also ordered Tesla to reinstate an employee who was fired for his work as a trade union and to return his salary. The decision also says Tesla must post a notice addressing unfair labor practices at the plant in Fremont, California, where United Auto Workers had tried to organize 10,000 workers.
Tesla’s appeal was filed Friday at the 5th U.S. Court of Appeal in New Orleans.
Musk wrote on Twitter on May 20, 2018: “Nothing would stop the Tesla team in our factory from voting for the union. They couldn’t do that if they wanted to. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is twice as good as when the factory was in the UAW and everyone is already receiving medical care. “