Trump and Musk Hit With CHARGES [UPDATED]

not

After Donald Trump and Elon Musk had a discussion yesterday on Twitter Spaces, the news is that both have been hit with charges for saying that striking workers should be fired:

The National Labor Relations Board posts a summary of labor law complaints the day they’re received. For example:

You can look for yourself. As of 10:40 AM PT, no charges have been filed against Trump or Musk by the UAW — despite the dozens of news stories saying the complaints have been filed. CNN:

The UAW, which recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, filed separate charges against Trump and Musk Monday to the National Labor Relations Board.

They didn’t.

The National Labor Relations Act forbids an employer from specifically threatening to fire its own employees for striking. See the NLRB’s regulatory summary of prohibited actions here, and the full text of the Labor Relations Act here. Scroll down to Section 8(a)(1) in the law for the language about prohibited employer actions: “It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7.”

A general discussion about the political view that employers should fire striking employees, not conveyed specifically by an employer to his employees, is First Amendment-protected speech, not a labor law violation. I’m pretty confident the UAW’s experienced labor lawyers know that.

You can search the NLRB’s “cases” listing. The last charges filed by the UAW were filed on August 9, and weren’t filed against Elon Musk or Donald Trump.

All of the news telling you that labor charges have been filed is made up. Maybe they intend to file, at some future point, but the hypothetical future complaint will be performative, at best. The “news” isn’t. They’re making it up.

UPDATE, August 14:

Still no complaints listed on the NLRB website, but a report in the New York Times says this:

The N.L.R.B. said it had received unfair labor practice allegations against Mr. Trump’s campaign and Tesla. Regional offices for the board will investigate, said Kayla Blado, an N.L.R.B. spokeswoman.

None of that makes the slightest sense. The Trump campaign isn’t an employer of union employees, and a discussion on x.com in which Trump said he thinks union workers should be fired has been reported in a complaint against…Tesla? Why?

So it does appear that complaints have been filed, but they seem to be nonsensical in the extreme. I’m still checking the NLRB website to see if the complaints are posted at some point, and I’ve asked the UAW for copies of the complaints.