A union calls Donald Trump and Elon Musk 'scabs' — then hits them with federal labor charges

The United Auto Workers union filed the charges on Tuesday, citing anti-union comments made Monday night

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris for The Met Museum/Vogue (Getty Images)

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Tuesday said they filed federal labor charges against the “disgraced billionaires” Former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the leader of several different companies, over comments made Monday night.

The two men held an hours-long interview on Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, where the pair briefly discussed labor unions and strikes. After an aside where Musk volunteered to work for a potential government commission to reign in spending, Trump praised Musk’s attitudes toward labor strikes.

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“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone’.”

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Although it’s unclear what exactly Trump is referring to, Musk has history of disliking unions and his electric vehicle company, Tesla, has been repeatedly accused of labor law violations. The company — which is among one of UAW’s targets as it tries to organize auto factories across the U.S. — is grappling with claims that Musk violated workers’ labor rights in 2018 when he suggested that employees would lose stock options if they organized.

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Trump could also be referring to Musk’s takeover of Twitter in 2022, which led to mass firings across the company’s workforce. In December of that year, Twitter’s janitorial staff walked off the job to fight for the “pay, benefits, and job protections” they need, CBS News reported. Later that month, Musk canceled janitorial services, according to The New York Times.

“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”

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Most of the U.S.’s major labor unions have endorsed Trump’s rival to become the next U.S. president, sitting Vice President Kamala Harris. Several of them reacted poorly to Trump and Musk’s interview, with the AFL-CIO writing on X that “scab recognize scab.”

But the UAW and Trump haven’t seen eye-to-eye for months.

During the labor union’s prolonged labor strikes against the Detroit Three automakers, Trump gave a speech at a non-union automotive parts maker in Michigan, which irritated the UAW’s leaders. Last month, while speaking at the Republican National Convention, Trump called for Fain to be “fired immediately” from his post sand said that “every single auto worker, union and non-union, should be voting for Donald Trump.”