MRC Free Speech America update summary: Filed on Oct. 25, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Tesla owner Elon Musk, determining Per Curiam the following: "[T]he NLRB’s order is VACATED, Tesla’s petition for review is GRANTED, the Board’s petition for enforcement is DENIED, and the case is REMANDED to the NLRB. The Board’s cross-petition for enforcement is DENIED AS MOOT."
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #52: The NLRB’s Censorship of Elon Musk
Type of Censorship: Direct Action
Agencies Involved:
- National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
Summary:
President Joe Biden’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a “speech-deletion order” to censor criticism of Biden’s Big Labor ally.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk owns the car manufacturer Tesla. Responding to a social media post (inaccurately) saying that Tesla maintained unsafe working conditions, Musk criticized the mega-union United Auto Workers (UAW), which had endorsed Biden.
Using the social media platform Twitter (which he later purchased), Musk wrote that the “War of Independence” was fought to get rid of the class system which the UAW perpetuated. Musk highlighted that the “UAW does not have individual stock ownership as part of the compensation at any other company.” If Tesla employees joined the UAW, he warned, their stock ownership rights could be lost too in the legally-mandated bargaining process that would follow.
Biden’s NLRB found that, even though Musk had criticized UAW outside of the workplace, his speech was still an “unfair labor practice” and demanded he delete his post. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, under the First Amendment, the NLRB had no authority to issue such a “speech-deletion order.”
Key Individuals:
- Jennifer Abruzzo, NLRB General Counsel
- Lauren McFerran, NLRB Chair
- David Prouty, NLRB Member
