Musk: A Unionized Tesla Would Indicate Failure
Elon Musk has no trouble generating words, both the ones that come out of his mouth (and keyboard fingers) and the ones that breathlessly recap the first type. There was the post on X agreeing with an antisemitic statement, though Musk later apologized. More recently, the controversial CEO shared his thoughts (again) on unions, saying that he believes a Tesla employee union would be a mistake, among many other statements.
Musk made his comments at a New York Times event, saying, "I think it’s generally not good to have an adversarial relationship between one group at the company and another group. The unions naturally try to create negativity in a company and create a sort of lords and peasants situation.”
He noted that a union would mean that the company had failed in some way, noting that the automaker’s managers and line-level workers are on far more level ground than they would be in a union shop.
He went on to claim that some Tesla workers have become millionaires through the value of stock bonuses, though the company’s share prices are down from the high two years ago. Musk’s comments came in response to a question about the UAW’s push to unionize Tesla workers. The union announced a goal to organize workers at holdout automakers across the country, including Rivian, Lucid, and Tesla.
[Image: Shutterstock]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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echo others comments here, unions are necessary when management fails. Unfortunately modern unions always make bad management look competent by comparison.
Truthfully, Musk has never been much of a fan of free speech. He’s fired employees who spoke out, both at Twitter and SpaceX. A blogger who mildly criticized Tesla found his car order cancelled. When our friends at the Center for Investigative Reporting dug into how Tesla was failing to report serious injuries at its factory, Musk called them “extremist” and a bunch of “rich kids in Berkeley”.
Union or non-union, you can tell how ethical and fair a company is acting by how it treats its employees and workers from top to bottom.
This man could give every employee double the wage today without changing his wealth portfolio. And does anyone really expect this to happen to this unrepentant greedhead? A pox on all their houses. I would actually trust the IRS to redistribute the money more than this cretin and his ilk.