Tesla accused of illegally firing two staff after they criticized Elon Musk

Two former Tesla staff are saying they had been illegally fired from the corporate after collaborating in an organized effort to publicly criticize Elon Musk, according to Bloomberg.

The staff say they had been concerned in drafting two letters, one among which requested Tesla to rethink its return-to-the-office insurance policies and the opposite highlighting a tweet by Musk that they argue violates the corporate’s anti-harassment insurance policies. The draft letters had been by no means despatched to Tesla executives, in response to Bloomberg.

According to the grievance, as cited by Bloomberg, the workers say they had been fired for discussing “Tesla’s failure to enforce its non-harassment policy and its implementation of its post-Covid return to office policy.” (The Verge has filed a Freedom of Information request with the NLRB for the paperwork concerned within the case.)

The case mirrors an identical one involving a bunch of former SpaceX staff that declare they had been illegally fired after writing a letter that referred to as on the corporate to strengthen its “zero-tolerance policies” following sexual harassment allegations towards Musk. Nine staff had been in the end fired after the letter got here out in June 2022, eight of whom filed the costs with federal regulators.

The former SpaceX staff filed a grievance with the NLRB and retained a San Francisco regulation agency to symbolize their case. The former Tesla staff have retained the identical agency. A spokesperson for the agency didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Tesla didn’t reply to a request for remark — and hasn’t since 2019, when it disbanded its press relations division.

US regulation prohibits employers from taking motion towards staff, each unionized and non-unionized, for taking collective motion associated to their working circumstances.