On the evening of August 12, Tesla (TSLA) CEO and X (formerly known as Twitter) owner Elon Musk hosted a nearly two-hour long "conversation" with former U.S. President and Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.
The duo talked extensively on an extensive list of topics, including immigration, electric vehicles, and Trump's newly nominated Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Related: Elon Musk's subtle EV pitch nudges Trump in the right direction
But amongst the conversations centering around subtle details of the duo's conversation, including Trump's supposed lisp and technical difficulties that Musk blamed on a DDoS attack (X employees told The Verge that there wasn't one), a brief side discussion filled with laughs caught the attention of one of Musk's biggest critics who did not find the topic or conversation humorous.
Trump and Musk's union gaffe
After an aside where Musk offered a helping hand on a hypothetical government commission on spending during their intensely long live-streamed conversation, the duo briefly discussed labor unions and workers who walk off the job to go on strike.
Here, Trump heavily praised Musk's attitudes toward labor strikes, even blessing him with a signature Trump-style nickname: "the greatest cutter."
"You're the greatest cutter," Trump told Musk.
"I look at what you do. You walk in, you say, 'You want to quit?' They go on strike."
"I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, 'That’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.'"
The UAW's reaction
While Trump and Musk exchanged giggles in their praise-filled aside, one of the country's most powerful organized labor figures did not find the comments funny at all.
On the morning of August 13, the United Auto Workers (UAW) filed federal labor charges against Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump, saying that the gaffe contained language meant to "threaten and intimidate" workers.
In their press release, the UAW claimed that the air advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers. The union also pointed out that under federal law, it is illegal for employers to fire workers for going on strike, and the act of threatening to do so violates the National Labor Relations Act.
🧵UAW Files Federal Labor Charges Against Donald Trump and Elon Musk for Attempting to Intimidate and Threaten Workers
— UAW (@UAW) August 13, 2024
In a statement, UAW President Shawn Fain called out the "disgraced billionaires" language for physically embodying the very things the union organized against.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” Fain said.
“Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
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Tesla has a rocky history with unions at home, abroad
Elon Musk is famously anti-union. Tesla stands alone as the only high-volume American automaker not represented by a union, and according to Musk, being unionized means that the automaker "failed."
"I think it's generally not good to have an adversarial relationship between one group at the company and another group," Musk said during his infamous talk at the New York Times DealBook Summit in November 2023.
"I disagree with unions because I don't like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing. I think unions naturally try to create negativity at a company."
The specific incident that Trump may be referring to is a unionization effort led by workers at Tesla's Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, in February 2023.
Here, workers at the Gigafactory who were involved with developing Tesla's Autopilot software launched a union organizing drive with Worker's United, a union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Related: Tesla quietly made a controversial change to the Cybertruck
Before the Tesla effort, Worker's United successfully organized a Starbucks store. However, on the day after the Tesla announcement, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) received a complaint that accused Tesla of illegally firing more than 18 of its employees who were involved with Workers United's efforts.
Musk's anti-union practices aren't limited to "threats" in the United States.
As of July 2024, Tesla has been the target of one of the longest strikes in Sweden. Initiated on October 27, 2023, Tesla mechanics represented by Swedish trade union IF Metall have been striking over TM Sweeden's, Tesla vehicle service subsidiary, refusal to sign a collective agreement.
In Sweden, solidarity strikes are legal. What started as mechanics refusing to work on Tesla cars later expanded to include Swedish dock workers refusing to unload Tesla cars from cargo ships, Swedish postal workers refusing to deliver license plates to Tesla vehicles, and Danish and other Nordic dockworkers refusing to unload Teslas.
Tesla, Inc., which trades under TSLA on the NASDAQ, is down 4.09% from the opening bell, trading at $199.32 at the time of writing.
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