Tesla boss Musk warns against union and threatens to halt expansion in Grünheide

Translation: At the beginning of March, works council elections are due to take place at Tesla's German plant in Grünheide near Berlin. CEO Elon Musk addressed the workforce in Brandenburg via video message. In it, he threatened to halt the plant expansion if the site did not remain ‘free from external influences’. According to media reports citing participants at the internal event in Grünheide, he was referring to the IG Metall trade union. There is no recording of the video. ‘Well, things will certainly become more difficult if there are, so to speak, external organisations pushing Tesla in the wrong direction,’ Musk is quoted as saying. ‘We will not close the factory, but realistically, we will not expand either.’ It has long been known that Musk rejects unionised labour. In Grünheide, German plant manager André Thierig is pursuing this line for him. The situation between management and the union has recently escalated dramatically ahead of the upcoming election: an alleged secret laptop recording caused a stir at the German Tesla plant and could have legal consequences. IG Metall is fighting the allegations in court. Der Spiegel writes of a ‘culture war’: on one side is Tesla, a libertarian-minded US tech company that wants to keep the union out of the company. On the other side is a German employee representative body that is accustomed to co-determination and is demanding it in the gigafactory as well. IG Metall currently represents the largest faction on the Tesla works council, but other lists have joined forces and thus have a majority. According to reports, the Tesla CEO's latest statement on the Grünheide site was made during a video interview with Musk in front of the workforce. The pre-recorded conversation was conducted by plant manager Thierig together with Musk in Austin, Texas, and was played back on Wednesday at the German factory in the presence of Thierig. After ‘a while’ into the conversation, Thierig is said to have asked Musk: ‘Do you have any advice for the team at “Giga Berlin” on how we can work towards your vision?’ The CEO is then said to have made the above statements. ‘One of the coolest factories in the world’ Musk went on to talk about ‘one of the coolest factories in the world.’ ‘Giga Berlin is a fantastic factory,’ he is quoted as saying. ‘The atmosphere there is cool. When you walk around, you know, it's very clean, it's pretty nice inside and outside.’ Tesla has ‘just started ramping up production of battery cells.’ Most recently, it was reported that the company did not expect to begin battery production in Brandenburg, which had been planned for some time, until 2027. According to Musk, production of the mid-range Model Y SUV is also set to be scaled up, ‘especially once we get approval for more supervised full self-driving features.’ The next big product will ‘most likely be the Tesla Cybercab,’ Tesla's new robot taxi. But there are also opportunities for the humanoid robot Optimus and the Semi electric truck. ‘So Tesla has a lot of products in the pipeline, there's a lot of potential. I think if things go well, we would expand Giga Berlin as much as possible,’ the CEO explained. In response to Thierig's objection that there is ‘plenty of space’ in Grünheide, Musk is said to have replied: ‘Well, assuming the authorities are supportive and the people are supportive. Then we would probably expand to make it the largest factory complex in Europe.’

i imagine they need to halt expansions since they don't really sell any cars in Europe anymore.

Brandenburg also produces for Canada, these days. But yeah, the point stands.

Did the employees need moremotivation to form their union or something?

This is the guy that warns of not enough young people making kids.

Are there any driverless cars in Europe at the moment?

They're not a car company....😂

On yeah THAT'S the reason they aren't expanding...

Oh yeah, the union is the problem, not the latest car designs

Or the CEO sieg heiling into the camera.

NO major producer in Germany refuses IG Metall like that, he simply chose the wrong country to base his „not a car company“-production site in. Even Rheinmetall workers are unionized.

[deleted]

Fuck him.

He already stopped the expansion of sales so why wouldn’t he stop the expansion of factory

Being CEO is a really stressful job. Does anyone know which night is the wildest party on the island? He really needs to let loose.

Also why would the Union care about the expansion being halted? The union cares for existing jobs and not for new jobs. The more they expand the higher the probability is that someone will have to go when the demand isn't there.

They sold a total of 19,000 cars in Canada last year and that number is still falling/will disappear when BYD starts selling in Canada.

This question is best asked on a christmas morning so that you don't have to spend time with the wife and kid(s)!

No, and probably quite far off.

I did Nazi that coming....

Then what do they sell? Hopes and dreams? Puffed air?

But they need smoke & mirrors to make believe they will be selling something

If you continue to reject my cars because I'm a Nazi, I will...I will....*make less of them! And then you'll all be sorry!*

Stock

Do the unsold Teslas count? Technically they're driverless cars.

Or rather, lack of new car designs.

Clean air credits to other car manufacturers.

Wife? More like baby mommas.

Retaliation against workers for exercising their rights is illegal in the European Union. It still happens, but most companies don’t go running their mouths to the press about their plans to do so.  All workers in the European Union have the right to join a union. Article 12 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form and join trade unions.

Forget Expansion. Just pull it down, don’t need your crap in EU

He’ll probably ending up blaming unionization for his poor sales in Europe.

Twice

Germany? They're going to tell him to go pound sand.

LOL, expansion...

Funny when people without wives and stable families preach the importance of raising children and traditional family values.

Not so much any more

They aren't going to expand. Demand for their cars is dropping year on year. Why would they be expanding?  This is just Musk nonsense

Copium

By all means, continue to shoot yourself in the foot, Elon.

Gives me those vibes of I used to vote democrats just before his whole harassment thing leaked out.

Yeah exactly. Sales have fallen off a cliff, so obviously they're not going to be expanding production. They can't even fully utilise the production they already have. He's just looking for someone else to blame.

He will halt it anyway as soon as he finds something else to hype…

They’re a Hype company…

Canned Muskrat Farts

Stock N Roll

Slaves don’t just grow on trees…

lol, Musk has a multi billion dollar factory there that was just finished a few years ago that doesn’t make any cars because no one in Europe wants to buy from a Nazi

Not even with your dick!

Besides Mercedes, BMW, VW Group?

To be Laissez-faire, we all expected it…

Aren’t all unsold cars driverless?

Puff Daddy

Charging grids

Their car business is done, why do they need to expand?

Leere Drohung! Musk will dort sowieso Optimus, ähhh KI, ähhh Mars-Raketen, ähhh - Venus-Raketen oder doch irgendwas anderes bauen.

Yeah seriously. With Chinese EVs here, their sales will continue to move closer to 0

Stock and lies.

“Halt expansion “. Market did that for them.

If only we could produce them in a factory and program them to be obedient… hang on, I have this genius idea!

Expansion? Nobody's buying the cars anyway.

Science fraud.

He is going to halt expansion anyways. People are not buying Tesla death machines anymore

He should build Trabants.

this is a pretty easy out rather than saying "we don't have the demand to support this factory"

Canada will also be selling Chinese EVs soon…

Yeah but according to Musk, unionisation creates "a lord and peasants sort of thing." Because the world's richest man going and doing business in multiple countries while declaring their long-standing trade relations and business practices don't apply to him, is somehow not "a lord and peasants sort of thing".

Hey figuring out how to cover the glass roof with interior headliner could only be done with Elon’s once-in-a-generation genius

> I think if things go well, we would expand Giga Berlin as much as possible He managed to get 4 qualifiers in that statement … impressive

That and unions are proven to be a good thing for the majority. Paid vacation, mandatory medical care, 1 year maternity/paternity leave, sick leave. All these things are standard in the EU and it’s largely because of unions that they exist. Compare this to US companies and worker rights - to my knowledge none of these are a guarantee there. Does this dip shit think we’re as dumb as Americans when it comes to these things? It certainly can’t be that he thinks he’ll use his “charisma” to convince us otherwise, can it?

And Canada is earmarked for the Chinese Model Y variant (I remember reading it somewhere).

We can call the first model the T-100 series!

Says a lot about the state of the world when it's more practical to ship 1/3 the way around the globe than roughly 1000 miles.

Halt expansion? “Giga”Berlin is setup to produce 500,000 cars annually and they’re producing maybe 100,000. Probably not even that anymore. Elon would love a good excuse to just bin the whole project. It was always a terrible idea anyway.

What kind of charging network does Canada have? Tesla?

Elon’s play a very long game. It won’t be long before solid state batteries replace the current wet cells. They can easily be retrofitted into a Tesla model Y. Giving those cars another 10 years of life.

As if they have any plans to expand. Nobody is buying swasticars here.

Which car designs? All their relevant products are ancient

And, so many wives and kids. Good thing that Tesla is a genius. Most men wouldn't remember the names of all those kids.

Science fiction.

Elon Musk: "Man of the people"

Chinese EVs will eviscerate Teslas market share in Canada, no matter where they’re made

Fuck Germany (of all countries) to let this shithole of a human build a factory there. Is every politician in every country just a bag full of dogshit? That was rhetorical BTW.

Tesla's #1 and #2 products were cars and the environmental credits they got from making cars. The latter is disappearing. Musk's constant mantra - for years now - is assigning a new buzzword to what Tesla "really is". They're a "software" company (for self driving) They're a "robotics" company They're an "energy" company They're an "AI" company Literally anything except a car company, their #1 product, because if we possibly valued Tesla by how much business they did then their market cap might have to actually represent reality instead of hype for a future that's coming "soon" for the past decade.

Or [openly agreeing with neo-nazis on twitter](https://imgur.com/gallery/elon-musk-didnt-need-to-salute-to-be-obvious-neo-nazi-9SBLkkf) Or endorsing [White Genocide fearmongering](https://i.imgur.com/XG3F3fL.png)

As a Canadian, Canadians do not want to buy Teslas lol. Nobody is excited about a cheaper Model Y. Everyone is hyped for a BYD Seagull or a Zeekr 001

That will make Teslas even more popular in Europe… (Is Elon secretly working for Byd?)

I hope they don't want to buy them. But I'm sure some will. I've been shocked how many of the cheaper model Y's I've noticed lately. The only way I know they're new is the headlights, squared off front and back (ugly again), and the temporary tags. My guess is that people that leased/bought more than 3 years ago are upgrading to the newer model at an aggressive price. Tesla can report them as vehicles delivered, even though they then have a used one to deal with.

„reproduction machines“

Tesla won’t expand there because Musk’s mismanagement of the company is destroying it - this is just an excuse to cover his ass…

Why would a billionaire warn against the forming of a union…. maybe because he fears employees standing up for their rights and each other against his exploitation.

Tesla has no future in Europe. In the end this facility will probably be bought by some German automaker.

Pedo Musk can just shut up and focus on cleaning Drumpf’s diaper…

Here in QC, I have yet to see a Std MY. Also, I was looking at M3 inventories before they imported them back in the US, and NOTHING was moving.

Hus attitude and belief is killing the company. I wasin different Asian manufacturers EVs in Thailand, and they were a lot better than any Tesla. I used to work at the factory for Tesla