Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC, USA on March 9, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Tesla is asking an appeals court to overturn a federal agency’s order to remove from Twitter account Elon Musk a Twitter post that discourages the union organization.
The National Labor Relations Board found that a May 2018 tweet from Musk illegally threatened employees with the loss of stock options if they decided to be represented by a union. The board ordered that the post be deleted.
Among other things, the long resolution of the March 25 meeting also orders Tesla to reinstate an employee who was fired for organizing a union activity and to be returned his pay. The resolution also says Tesla must issue a notice of unfair labor practices at its plant in Fremont, California, where United Auto Workers had been trying to organize 10,000 workers.
Tesla’s appeal was filed Friday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Musk tweeted on May 20, 2018: “Nothing prevents the Tesla team at our car plant from voting for the union. They could do it if they wanted to. But why pay union dues and resign? to stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2 times better than when the plant was UAW and everyone already has health care. “