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Personal Companies Politics | ||
Elon Musk has commented negatively ontrade unions[1] and has clashed with workers at companies he owns includingTesla,SpaceX, andX Corp. (formerlyTwitter). In 2025, Musk was appointed by president Trump to head theDepartment of Government Efficiency, which was opposed by several trade unions. In 2023, Musk commented that he disagreed with "the idea of unions", describing it as a "lords and peasants" scenario.[2]
TheNational Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had 24 open investigations into Musk's companiesTesla,SpaceX, andX Corp. (formerlyTwitter) as of January 2025[update]. These include alleged surveillance of Twitter employees duringMusk's acquisition of Twitter and interference withunion organizing at Tesla. TheEqual Employment Opportunity Commission was investigatingracial discrimination at SpaceX. In 2024, SpaceX countersued the NLRB in response to the NLRB's investigation into alleged retaliation against employees who spoke out critically.[3]
In the first month ofDonald Trump's second presidency, Trump fired top board members at several labor agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, theEqual Employment Opportunity Commission[4] and theFederal Labor Relations Authority,[5] denying theseindependent agencies the quorum needed to make board decisions.[4]
A coalition of US labor unions sued to limit the access of theDepartment of Government Efficiency (led by Elon Musk) to sensitive data in various government agencies.[6] TheAFL-CIO launched a campaign called the Department of People Who Work for a Living, a reference to DOGE.[7]
Two labor unions representing government employees,American Federation of Government Employees, theService Employees International Union, and theAlliance for Retired Americans, a non-profit representing retired union members, sued theTreasury Department on February 3, for sharing financial information with DOGE,[8] as violations of thePrivacy Act and theInternal Revenue Code.[9]
TheAFL-CIO sued theDepartment of Labor on February 5,[10] to prevent DOGE from accessing its internal IT system, a request that was declined by US District JudgeJohn Bates two days later, because the AFL-CIO failed to show actual harm from the Department of Labor.[11]
TheAmerican Federation of Teachers, and three more unions, theNational Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, theInternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and theNational Federation of Federal Employees sued three government agencies on February 10, for allegedly sharing data with the DOGE, including the Treasury Department for sharingtax refunds andsocial security information, theOffice of Personnel Management (the federal government's HR system) for providing job applicant and federal employee data, and theEducation Department for providing database ofstudent loans.[12]
Tesla has had labor disputes in the United States, Germany and Sweden, including an ongoingstrike in Sweden.Tesla, Inc., an Americanelectric car andsolar panel manufacturer, has more than 140,000 workers employed across its global operations as of January 2024.[13] Tesla CEOElon Musk has expressed hisopposition to unions onTwitter (now called X). TheNational Labor Relations Board held that onetweet was unlawful, but was overturned by afederal appeals court.[14] Allunionization efforts at theTesla Fremont Factory andGigafactory New York in the United States have been unsuccessful.[15] In Germany,Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg andTesla Automation have electedworks councils, but they have not signedcollective bargaining agreements with the German trade unionIG Metall.[16][17] The Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg works council is divided into pro-union and anti-union factions.[18] In Sweden, mechanics who are members of the trade unionIF Metall have been on strike since October 27, 2023, making it the longest strike in Sweden since 1938.[19] The strike has since spread, with otherSwedish, Danish and Norwegian unions calling forsolidarity strikes.[20]
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