According to US authorities, Musk’s 2018 Twitter message constituted an unlawful threat.
(Photo: AP)
new York Tesla boss Elon Musk is still in trouble with the judiciary because of controversial statements on his short message service Twitter. A US appeals court put the billionaire in his place on Friday over a tweet against the establishment of a union at Tesla. The court in New Orleans supported the actions of the US labor law authority NLRB. She had asked Musk to delete the 2018 Twitter message because it constituted an unlawful threat. Musk had written: “No one is stopping the Tesla team… from voting for a union. But why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?”
The UAW union welcomed the verdict. Tesla initially did not comment. Tesla lawyers had previously argued that Musk’s tweet did not constitute a threat. Rather, the Tesla boss only stated that unionized employees at other US auto companies did not receive stock options.
There is currently no union organization at Tesla plants in the USA. It was not until February that workers in the US state of New York made a new attempt to set up a union. Musk has owned the short message service Twitter since last year. His own statements on the portal repeatedly put the 51-year-old on a confrontational course with investors, authorities and courts.
Meanwhile, Musk asked to drop a $258 billion lawsuit alleging price manipulation of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. A letter filed by attorneys for Musk and Tesla in New York on Friday night called the lawsuit brought by Dogecoin investors a “fantastic work of poetry.” The plaintiffs failed to show how Musk intended to cheat or hide risks with his “harmless and often silly tweets.” A lawyer for the investors said in an email that they were more confident than ever of winning the court case.
The plaintiffs accuse Musk, together with Tesla, his aerospace company SpaceX and the tunnel builder Boring Co, of first boosting the course of the cyber currency and then letting it crash. Musk had made several positive comments about Dogecoin on Twitter and helped the internet currency, which started as a parody of Bitcoin, to jump in price.
In early May 2022, Dogecoin crashed after the Tesla boss called the motto a hoax in a skit on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. The $258 billion in damages sought is three times the estimated loss in market value over the 13 months prior to the filing of the lawsuit.
More: Tech elite around Elon Musk calls for AI development break