Tesla compensates workers partly in stock — Musk's argument has been that employees share in the upside directly rather than through union dues. On the marquee legal case: the NLRB ordered Tesla to delete a 2018 anti-union Musk tweet, but in 2024 a federal appeals court, sitting en banc, reversed and held the tweet was constitutionally protected speech. The honest part critics get right: a 2017 report found serious-injury rates at Tesla's Fremont plant were roughly double the industry average that year, Tesla has faced multiple NLRB complaints and discrimination suits, and it contested a 2025 OSHA citation. Those safety and labor concerns deserve to be taken seriously and aren't waved away here. But the simple "illegal union-buster" framing was rejected on First Amendment grounds, and Tesla workers have repeatedly declined to unionise.