New York.- The United Auto Workers union, or UAW, filed charges with federal labor regulators on Tuesday, accusing former President Donald J. Trump and Elon Musk of threatening workers during a conversation they had the day before that was broadcast live.
The union, which supports Vice President Kamala Harris, accused Trump of breaking the law by supporting the practice of firing workers when they go on strike, a strategy the former president suggested Musk had adopted.
In their conversation at X, which was delayed due to technical issues, Trump described Musk as “the one who has laid off the most workers.”
He said Musk responded to striking workers by telling them, “OK, you’re all fired.”
Musk, the billionaire leader of Tesla and SpaceX, smiled in response but did not directly address Trump’s statement before the former president changed the subject.
While Musk has a reputation as a relentless firefighter — particularly at X, formerly Twitter, where he laid off half the workforce shortly after acquiring the company — and has engaged in union-busting tactics, Trump could have used a combination of the different episodes in Musk’s business empire.
In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board found that Musk illegally fired a Tesla employee for engaging in union activities.
The board also accused him this year of illegally firing SpaceX employees, including in a letter workers circulated criticizing Musk.
A Trump campaign spokesman, Brian Hughes, called the lawsuit against Trump “a shameful political stunt intended to erode the support the former president has received from American workers.”
Under the National Labor Relations Act, it is illegal for employers to threaten to fire workers in retaliation for their participation in union activities.
In a statement, UAW President Shawn Fain said that “Trump is against everything our union stands for,” adding, “Both Trump and Musk want the working class to sit back and be silent so they can laugh openly.”
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