Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chief executive officer of Tesla, waves as he arrives for a discussion at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC, on Monday, March 9, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled Tesla violated labor laws when it fired a union activist, and then CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter in 2018: “Nothing will stop the Tesla team at our car factory from voting for a union. Could do that if they wanted to. But why pay union rights and give up stock options for nothing?”
Among other things, the federal agency has ordered Tesla to ask Musk to delete his abusive tweet and offer a job back to the fired employee, Richard Ortiz. Tesla must also compensate Ortiz for lost earnings, benefits, and adverse tax consequences as a result of his resignation.
The employee was part of an organizing campaign, “Fair Future at Tesla.” At the time of the campaign, Tesla said his company should remain union-free. But Musk’s public comments on his Twitter account, where he has tens of millions of followers, were seen as threatening. Tesla considers Elon Musk’s tweets to be official corporate communication, as revealed in its financial documents.
Tesla will also, as a matter of course, have to review a confidentiality agreement it has given to employees. Earlier, the company told employees not to speak to the media without explicit written permission. However, national labor law “generally protects workers when they talk to the media about working conditions, labor disputes or other working conditions,” says NLRB.
The board also ordered Tesla to post notices across the country and hold a meeting (or series of meetings) at their main U.S. auto plant in Fremont, to educate employees about their protected rights. At the meeting, Musk himself or a “board agent” in the presence of Musk will read that notice to employees, along with guards, managers and supervisors.
News of the decision was previously reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by the United Auto Workers, who brought the suit. UAW said it was preparing a statement, and Tesla was not immediately available to comment.
Thursday’s decision was largely in line with that of September 2019 of an administrative judge who had previously handled the complaint. Tesla did that all the way to the full board.
Read the full decision and order from NLRB here.
CNBCs Michael Wayland contributed to this report.