Anika Begay
The United Auto Workers union, which represents about 400,000 workers in the auto, aerospace and agriculture industries, said Tuesday it has filed federal labor charges against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The charges follow what the UAW describes as “attempts to threaten and intimidate workers” that emerged during a conversation between Trump and Musk, hosted on X Spaces on Monday night, in which Trump appeared to praise X owner Musk for firing striking workers.
“Well, you’re the biggest cutthroat,” Trump told Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. “I mean, I look at what you do. You come in and you just say, ‘Do you want to leave?’ They go on strike. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘All right. You’re all gone. You’re all gone.’” Musk didn’t respond specifically to Trump’s comments, but he laughed as the former president spoke and said he would be “happy to help out” on a government efficiency panel.
U.S. workers, whether unionized or not, cannot be fired for taking part in protected strikes, according to the National Labor Relations Board. In his comments, Trump “stated a position that is a violation of the law, plain and simple,” says William B. Gould IV, a professor at Stanford Law School and a former chairman of the NLRB. Trump could be seen as an agent of Musk’s companies, Gould says, and his words could potentially interfere with unionization votes at companies.
The NLRB will investigate the allegations and then decide how to proceed if it finds they are valid.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, that’s what we mean. When we say Trump opposes everything our union stands for, that’s what we mean,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “Both Trump and Musk want the working class to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and completely predictable from these two clowns.”
The UAW has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, and has previously called Trump “a scab and a lapdog for billionaires.” The union did not provide a copy of the charges filed Tuesday when requested by WIRED; they had not yet been filed on the NLRB’s website at press time.
Musk’s companies have a terrible record when it comes to workers’ rights. Trump didn’t name Musk’s company he was referring to, but Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and Boring Company. Musk has said in the past that unionizing Tesla would result in a loss of stock options, and he cut staff at X (then Twitter) when he bought it, eventually even canceling the services of striking janitors. Meanwhile, SpaceX is currently fighting the NLRB in court.
The UAW previously tried to unionize Tesla workers, but failed. The union is still trying to do so. Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. The Trump campaign also did not respond to a request for comment.
Shortly after the UAW announced the indictment, Musk wrote on X: “The last two UAW presidents have gone to prison for bribery and corruption, and based on the latest reports, it looks like this guy is joining them!” (Two former UAW presidents have been sentenced to prison terms in a large corruption investigation, but they were not the union’s two most recent presidents.)
