Elon Musk calls strikes ‘insane’ as Swedish workers take on Tesla
theguardian.com
Elon Musk has decried a wave of “insane” strikes focused on Tesla workshops in Sweden, as workers target the US electric car manufacturer in a strike calling for collective bargaining rights.
In what has been portrayed as the largest fight in decades to save Sweden’s union model from global labour practices, the powerful trade union IF Metall has been leading a strike across eight Tesla workplaces in Sweden for five weeks.
It is the first time workers for the US carmaker have gone on strike and on Thursday, Musk, the tech billionaire and chief executive of Tesla, made his feelings clear, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “This is insane.”
Guys, this is what success for the working class looks like.
If the ruling class is upset, it's because we're doing something right.
If they're content, it's because they're fucking us up the ass with no lube or reach-around.
They literally want us to roll over and just take it. And some of us are proud to. Glad that number is rapidly diminishing, though.
Frfr, hate on them high billys
I would love to see the number of people upvoting this who are genuinely working class.(remember, every downvote on my reply is a middle class person who does not practice what they preach)
Middle class is the working class and I support our unions. When I worked for one I got a fair wage and just because I'm not in one currently doesn't mean you cant support them.
The middle class is a made up idea designed to divide the working class. You either have to work for a living or you don’t, and slightly higher income and a bit of savings doesn’t make your function in society entirely different even if it allows you more comfort.
Nope. Totally different universes. Middle class people in the west like to roleplay as downtrodden but none of them have worked actual working class jobs and all enjoy at least some security of education
So you’re trying to tell me that because I have a degree, work in an office job, and have some savings, that I’m not working class? If I lost my job I’d have a few months in savings before I’d be digging into retirement funds, and even then I’d probably be completely broke within a year or two. That’s certainly a lot more comfort than someone who would miss rent next month, but ultimately I still am dependent on an employer and selling my labor, I do not have anywhere near enough money to live on dividends or interest payments. I see much more in common with someone making minimum wage than I do with the owner class who lives on rent, interest, and dividends without working.
You dont think that's middle class? Because you have to work to not run out of money?
So do most of the upper classes. What you have the luxury of an education that allows them some freedom to work, and the comforts of knowledge work that allow them to not have to sacrifice their physical health and, most likely an income bracket that at least affords you some choice in where you live.
The point is that high levels of migration, effectively forces your own countries working classes to compete with and deal with tons of cheap foreign labour coming in, with little or no conformity to the parent culture because it hasn't been facilitated. The middle classes traditionally laugh at the working classes and claim they are being "racist", "stupid" and "lazy" for complaining about this arrangement, while mostly avoiding it's effects themselves.
This voting is a result of the left wing, middle classes being unable to grasp the obvious effects of their voting record, instead pretending to each other in echo chambers that they are the real working classes and how shocking all this right wing-tilt is. Throwing the incumbent working class culture under a bus.
You can call it middle class if you want. But it's also working class. Even most petite bourgeois are working class as they cannot live off capital interest.
You either live off wealth or you live off income. If you live off income you are a worker and workers need to stand together.
This is, as I have described above, all well and good to say...
...Apart from when you repeatedly support policies that further squeeze extant working classes, then have the gall to do this vague virtue signalling of "standing together". It's hypocritical.
You are doing local workers in the country a disservice and the owning classes a great help to price them out of existence.
Ofc every upvote is working class. There is no other reason I would upvote that comment
Ah yes. I might have missed the memo where you became the Judge of who is working class or not.
(And remember if you answer my comment you admit that you have no Idea what you are talking about and are just here to troll 🥸)
Yeah no, that's not how this works. You're being downvoted for posting a stupid comment.
Bet you thought you were super smart with that one
It's an accurate observation, and it's not so much that I consider myself smart, it's more that I note most negative replies generally refuse to acknowledge the underlying issue (read: dumb).
The reason they have so many downvotes is because they buy them cheap on Amazon.com
OnT: I'm Swedish and it's good to see a proper strike, but the real thing motivating the unions on this isn't workers rights or anything. The unions are subservient to the national labour union organisation, LO, who'll do the shadiest shit to get more power for themselves, and don't care about working conditions in the slightest. The only thing that's a red line for them, is when corporations refuse to take part in the charade, by not signing a collective agreement.
You have to pay some lip-service, even if it costs you. If you do, the unions will be on your side against the workers.
Cry harder billionaire.
Literally made his money on exploitation and lies. SpaceX is amazing, but built on much smarter minds; he was just the wallet. And he bought Tesla and has been lying and overpromising since he did.
NASA could do what SpaceX does if we gave NASA the money we gave SpaceX. I won't even give him credit for that.
And don’t change their goals every 4-8 years. It is hard to accomplish a 10 year project if you can’t guarantee you’ll still be working on it in 10 years.
Yeah, and keep getting admins like Cheney that hate random programs
Meh another repeat of private shark corp vs government zombie group, would be interesting though
Doubtful, big administrations have big issues with productivity and meeting goals. Not that I think it is thanks to Musk, but startups/scaleups organizations are often much more efficient than traditional companies and administrations.
I think every engineer who has worked both at a big traditional company and a startup can confirm.
I've worked at both and cannot confirm. Startups are good at shipping new features, but that's usually because we don't spend as long planning, have less legacy code to work around, and most importantly, we cut a lot of corners. These behaviors are not good for space travel
I think SpaceX is demonstrating that a lot of IT startup methodology actually works for the space industry too. Most famously, accepting that making errors makes you learn faster, with their many rocket explosions, this is like short iterations in IT. This is opposed to the years long planning and studying to make sure everything is 100% perfect before launch of traditional space industry. They are out-competing every public and private space industries (such as ArianeGroup) with their methods, it seems to work pretty good.
Exploding rockets over populated areas and putting debris in the sky is bad. Wasting money in explosions is also bad. I don't think startup mentality belongs anywhere outside of SaaS. If you disagree on this then we're likely not going to reach common ground when talking about spaceX.
I also don't agree that they're out competing NASA, nor do I agree that that's even a worthwhile measure here because something so dangerous shouldn't be subject to the market. Getting exclusive contracts from the government is too political to truly say they're better. The F-23 was better than the F-22 but the 22 won the contract anyway.
Yes, the ecological impact is bad. I was focused on organizational efficiency as it was the subject of the comment I replied to. Also here's a study from Oxford University about it https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4119492
If ecology is to be the top priority then NASA budget could probably go into ecological transition research too instead of the new moon project.
Startups are the land of the MVP, and I don't mean Most Valuable Player. You don't want to be sending MVPs into space? Don't use a private company. NASA has bureaucracy but it also has stability, accountability, and the ability to think long-term.
It has been working out for ISS astronauts, hasn't it? I guess that's a bit more than an MVP.
Wtf are you on about? We give SpaceX nowhere near the funds we give NASA.
We gave NASA $25 billion this year.
SpaceX was awarded a $2.9B contract to fund the entire "land starship on the moon" program (a non cost+ contact I might add) spanning multiple years. They launched two sets of crew to the iss this year, at an estimated cost of ~700m. They have had one cargo mission this year at a cost of about $150m.
Let's give NASA that 2.9b for a new program then. That's a 10% budget increase.
Hell give me $2.9b and I'll find people to put us on the moon. Elon didn't do shit except take tax money, and give it to smart people, while keeping a cut for himself.
Do it then. Nobody else in the industry seems able to.
When it comes to space programs and launch costs/waste, SpaceX is at the bottom of the list. Nobody puts stuff in space cheaper than they do. And not by a small margin.
For comparison, the cost for SLS to launch into earth orbit is $4.1B. TO LAUNCH. Development costs for that program have exceeded $27B. They have been working on it since 2011. It has launched exactly one time over a year ago.
The entire contract to SpaceX to fully develop and launch a moon lander is less than the cost of launching a single SLS rocket.
Alright I'll do it when I get the cheque.
The stuff they put into space cheaply is actually debris from their poorly built launch pads that ricocheted off a school bus.
But didn't he also go above and beyond to have him portrayed as founder of SpaceX?
Yeah, and I'm fairly certain he bought the right to be called 'founder' of Tesla... From the founders.
He did He paid millions for their nda's
Then almost immediately bankrupted Tesla. Was their first near miss of going under.
Story has been retconned on their website to say Elon fixed the car. That the Roadster wasn't even close to production ready. He did neither.
What really happened is he wanted to redo much of the looks of the car to put his stamp on it. They spent a small fortune tweaking the Elise body to make it look just slightly less like one. Ballooned their production costs and added a ton of delays. The original team was going to use the Elise chassis as it came from Lotus and people had already lined up to buy that.
That's what all "visionary entrepreneurs" do. They pretend like they made every single product they sell with their bare hands and all the engineers and scientists designing them and the factory workers fabricating them are just for decoration.
I'm also convinced that they've breathed enough of their own farts that they genuinely believe most of the things they say.
No he actually founded spacex, you're thinking of Tesla.
Yup. The groundwork for privatized space travel had been in the works for a decade or two by that point. But musk wanted to buy an icbm and Russia said no. So he was convinced by much smarter people to become the money mark.
Not to mention 100's of millions of subsidies from the US government. Space X could never have survived with only his wealth!
His real skill is getting people to work hard. And he brought the iterative design he learned in software development to the physical world. Pared with family money, hire the right people to do the work, and you get SpaceX.
Did you really just say that on a post about how his workers are striking?! LOL!
Musk whines: "This isn't fair, I'm rich, poor people have to do what I say! Get back to work peasants! Why isn't it working?!"
Hmmm calling your workers insane for striking due to their lives and wellbeings endangered, seems entirely responsible and in no way insane.
Is he out of touch? No it is the workers who are wrong.
Well, SOMEONE is gonna have to make sacrifices and we all know that it can't be the rich guy, so...
He's actually referring to the sympathy strikers. No Tesla can get a licence plate or registered in solidarity with the autoworkers.
I feel like if someone is insane, it must be Musk, trying to circumvent the unions in a Nordic country, which have one some of the strongest unions and union culture in the world.
They used to have an even greater influence... These days there are no real extended demands, just smaller pay rises for many unions. And the social democratic political parties have severed the historical ties to them i many countries.
The collective agreements are still pretty strong, with unions blocking companies unwilling to agree to these collective Agreements.
Like when Burger King came to Denmark I believe it was, they refused to make collective agreements, and like in Sweden now, many other unions joined in year long boycotts until Burger King caved and agreed to comply.
McDonald's made collective agreements from the start, but had some tax evasion scheme that resulted in them not paying any taxes for decades up until fairly recently.
There is still cross union solidarity, that flair up now and again. But lobbied so called "yellow unions", that offers economical security benifits but without politics for a much lower fee price have chipped away at the older more classic unions.
The US is one of the most active places union wise these days. God knows they need it.
Typical rich person mentality. How easily they forget they don’t create wealth in a vacuum. People are only that rich off the hard work of other people
Nobody earns a billion dollars, that's impossible. People turn into billionaires by stealing the wages and wealth from their workers.
And imaginary wealth in stock market value.
I love thinking about how much of his imaginary wealth was lost due to his Twitter mismanagement.
The sound of strong unions is music to my ears.
There are almost no minimum wage laws but 90% of workers are unionized or represented in some way. They strike very rarely because employers know unions are strong there but when they do, oh boy the whole country is behind the workers on strike.
130 mechanics started the whole thing!
Good for them. This abuse of workers collective bargaining rights is just divide and conquer. Unions cannot work if you allow them to disappear.
It has to be said that the unions in Sweden do not want minimum wage because it would give employers another argument against them in negotiations. Even Elon uses it in countries that do have it.
He should just call them all pedophiles, that should resolve the issue.
That whole call people paedophiles for the lolz was originally supposed to be my joke 😭
Yeah the problem with that kind of humour is that eventually you'll attract the people who think the same thing unironnically.
But preferably only in person face to face and as a joke. Not as behind your back, messing with you kind of thing
To me, proof that Elon Musk is a doofus and not as smart as he thinks he is, is that he had this public persona of "real life Iron Man" billionaire playboy thing going, and within just a couple years his public image has become "douche bag with too much money". Obviously that one is way closer to reality, which is exactly my point.
Someone with half a brain would have hired a PR team to keep the original image intact for as long as possible, but he's so egotistical and so prideful and so oblivious he thinks he can let his real self on display and that'll just carry him
I think most people are at a point where they only really want to know what he's up to to make fun of him.
I would love it if people would just stop talking about him
do you think that will make him go away? Stop shining a light on the dark and disgusting in the hopes that they just disappear? Doesn't work like that pal.
If you actually cared, there are ways of stopping phony stark from coming up in your feed, yet here you are
who? Elon Musk you mean? That brilliant billionaire inventor and leader?
No Elon Musk the rich apartheid profited dipshit who deserves to be blood eagled.
dude he HAS a massive PR team to keep his image up, hell that PR Team is the only reason why people had this image of him in the first place
He has literally fired most (not sure if all?) of Tesla's PR team in the past as well as Twitter's. Guy doesn't believe PR is worthwhile.
ya, he has a personal PR team, why keep the others around? you want proof of his PR team, tho? take a look at the massive wave of "Musk is irl Iron Man articles" and how they always include a specific set of phrases and accomplishments to list.
For a while there I had hope he was doing it so he could run as a republican and then do a flip on them when he got elected.
Just started passing things usually called literal.
This was 5 years ago
Evidently he has Asperger's, so there might be a non-nefarious explanation for his lack of understanding of social things and why he is both simultaneously so successful/creative but also completely socially inept.
He might be actually incapable of understanding others' perspectives.
You do not need to understand others on an emotional level for this, you can come pretty far on rationals alone. This excuse might work in a personal relationship, not here.
I agree. But not everyone is wholly rational at all times and some people think they are being rational when in reality they made mistakes in their logical thought processes.
All I said was there may be a non-nefarious reason for him being the way he is. Are you arguing that he is definitely acting out of malice? If you are, I'd like to understand the reasoning you are using. I'm not trying to fight here, I'm trying to understand.
Not this again, really just shitting on Autistic people by saying stuff like this.
How is admitting the possibility of something shitting on them? I am trying to understand.
I still believe in him
Let's appreciate the insanity of opening factories in countries with some of the best unions and laws supporting unions and then doing a pikachu face when those unions go and decide to bust your kneecaps for essentially abusing the workers... Elon why did you even open a factory in sweden? It was obvious from the beginning this would happen.
Probably some insidious long term plan to weaken unions in Scandinavian countries.
I’ll take “Things petulant billionaires say when they don’t get their way” for $1000, Alex.
He's so persecuted. Guys, guys, be nice to Elon. He's just the victim here. There's no way these strikes are a direct response to his policies and business practices.
Poor thing.
“They are insane” = “I’m so far out of touch I can’t understand people who work for a living”
More like ‘I’m a sociopath who thinks petty things like empathy and basic human rights are stupid. Now get back to work, my servants are meant to be seen, not heard.’
I mean, he makes several hundred times what any of those workers make. That's because his labor is just soooo much more valuable than anything they could do, should be easy for him do all their work too, right?...right?
Yeah, just a friendly reminder that no rich person is "self-made." Their wealth (especially billionaires) is built off the backs of hundreds, often thousands of exploited workers, combined with favors and handouts from the government.
I love watching Musk screech and scream while his ass gets clapped by unions, keep it up!
Not several hundred times more. A million times more. If you made 100k, he made 1000 x 1000 as much as you to make 100 billion.
A billion dollars is an unfathomable amount of money. A hundred billion is unknowable. If anything, your points are even more poignant.
I think they are referring to his actual salary and not his "worth".
I’m an American that hasn’t been to many other countries, but Sweden is fortunately one of them. The culture is different from what I’m used to, and it boils down to respecting the dignity of the people around you, and in the process respecting yourself as well.
So, it’s very nice to see the solidarity of the workers, but also not surprising. In a good way.
Billionaires, the true Unskilled Worker
Worker is a bit of a stretch.
Poor guy. It must be so difficult watching his workers joining together to demand their fair share of his company’s profits. It’d be a real shame if workers in other countries follow suit. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it must be to be a billionaire. Those poor bastards.
Musk could spend a million dollars per day for 500 years and still be a billionaire. That’s a literally incomprehensible amount of money.
He could single-handedly end world hunger and barely notice a difference in his staggering wealth. Just paying his fair share of taxes would have a seismic effect on the US in so many ways, but instead he hoards more and more, siphoning wealth from those who need it most into coffers so large, he can’t even really notice.
It’s obscene.
Totally is. And the appetite doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the tipping point yet. Unfortunate.
The appetite is limitless. Wealth hoarding is just like every other type of hoarding. They’re trying to fill a hole in themselves with stuff, and they collect far more than will ever be useful to them, to the detriment of themselves and everyone else. Billionaires just do it at a scale that hurts us all.
"Waaaah my precious market forces are working against me."
They've seen 50-100% payrises in many cases - unions are important.
Unions that are bottom up organizations are important, Unions that are beholden to the political class are just a way to control us.
Sure, I guess.
Eating vegetables is good too - rotten vegetables are bad to eat though.
Unions consisting entirely of Vampires and other human-flesh/blood consuming monsters of myth and legend are also bad.
Because of the murders and the consuming of human flesh and blood.
You forgot to mention also the mess that needs to be cleaned up.
Remember how the railroad workers trid to strike & congress shut them down? Unions in America are not like Unions in Europe.
I'll put my response aside and ask - What's your point? Don't unionise?
Wildcat unions > corporatist unions
I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other (though I think your binary framing of wildcat Vs corporatist is a little dishonest), but looking at the current Tesla dispute in Sweden, the effect is massive because it's a cohesive, multi-sector strike. Seems like that's a pretty effective case of "us" controlling "them", no?
Yeah that the point the Swedish unions aren't working in a framework that's designed to give the political establishment control over the unions. If our ability to legally protest political matters could be vetoed by the people in power what effect do you think it would have on likelihood of effecting change through protect?
That's not a wildcat union, and those strikes were backed by Swedish courts - while I don't strongly disagree with your point (it varies based on the applicable legislative landscape for one), this example proves the opposite of your point if anything.
Your binary framing is bad enough that it's working against you, and your comprehension of the terms you're using doesn't help. Your underlying ideas aren't terrible, but they are lacking nuance (see the binary framing) that means they only work in certain contexts such as a hostile legislative environment - not real world examples like Sweden.
Yes, I know what a wildcat union is and yes, that's what I'm saying. That's nice that the courts in Sweden have graciously given permission for unions to be unions but that's not the situation in the US, the unions are at the whims of the political establishment in DC who through the two parts have a strangle hold on the electoral system. I don't see the democrats giving up those power anytime soon.
There's definitely benefit to working within the law when you're able - it allows for things like hyper-effective multi-sector strikes that wouldn't otherwise happen (see Sweden). That said, under different circumstances, illegal strikes are necessary to get the job done.
Biden breaking the rail strike was terrible, but a product of the circumstances at that point - since then, he's made some surprisingly big pro-union moves that will almost certainly increase union membership and bear fruit down the road.
The government is the bit that is different. The union is the same. They were just threatened more effectively.
LOL, being forced to burn $44 billion on Twitter was completely rational.
Ikr, genial some might say
America are you awake
At this hour? I doubt it.
Far åt fanders, surgubbe!
I have no idea what this means but I'm sure it's a phrase I'd use a lot at work.
There is no litteral translation that I can find, but an approximate would be:
Go to heck, old man!
Pretty much. DeepL offered "go to hell, sourpuss" which I also find to be in the spirit of the phrase. I intentionally chose those words to make it a bit difficult to properly translate. You can be sure that it is a proper curse however.
It's somewhere between the two.
Fanders is a "cleaner" version of "fan", a dated term for the devil. Rather akin to how how you could say heck instead of hell, or fiddlesticks instead of fuck.
Surgubbe is a compound word consisting of the words sur meaning sour/crabby/moody, and gubbe, which generally means old man. Gubbe on its own could also be an endearing term without any sort of age indication related to it. One could say something like "men åh lilla gubben" to a kid that's like faceplanted or something.
Personally I'd say surgubbe has a bit of a juvenile tone to it, which I think sourpuss also conveys. It lacks the gender that surgubbe has though.
Yep. Good explanation.
Yes, it is insane to go against unions in a country with a high degree of unionisation, where collective bargaining agreements are signed exactly because they prevent industrial unrest by ensuring the relationship between management and workers isn't adverserial.
I mean, I say it's insane, but let's be honest. Musk is yet another arrogant American CEO who didn't do his research on how things work in non-domestic markets. It's as much stupidity and arrogance, as it is insanity. Imagine thinking you somehow know better than companies like McDonalds (who did sign agreements with unions).
Musk seems like the kind of guy who thinks about the Roman Empire entirley too much. So it's surprising that he's never heard of the expression 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'
Ironic, since he's South African.
I know, I know. But American passport, American degree, America company.
Waiting for Noway and Denmark to join in and make it even more insane
I know there are Tesla Factories in Norway, but I don't think there are any in Denmark. I'm Danish, but I could be wrong.
It's more about the sympathy striking. If danish post clerks did not deliver letters to Tesla's offices or like in Sweden, they won't make number plates or unload them from the ships
Given the recent Dutch election I suspect trade unions may not be participating...
What does the Dutch election have to do with unions in Sweden, Noway and Denmark?
Oh here is some of your own medicine, how does it taste?
"Strikes are insane!" declares man who thinks Jews aren't white people.
wait what? wtf kinda logic is that? It's a religion not a fucking phenotype
You'll have to ask antisemites.
Nazicuntsayswhat
More Trump-like shit. Anyone who opposes him is 'deranged' or 'crazy'.
Elmo's clearly the one whose insane.
Elmo says something crazy. What a scoop.
Elmo's great. Musk is a sentient sack of detritus.
What a bizarre statement, given how he'll have to capitulate within a few weeks.
The rabble refuses to do my perfect bidding?! This is insanity!!
If money is just a high score for you and you can literally buy whatever you want, of course a strike is "insane". It's just money, right? Why are they mad?
For real, how much can a banana cost? 100 kronor??
Musk logic:
This is insane .... If it weren't for workers unions and advocates for human rights and regulating big corporations, I'd have all of you working as indentured slave laborers working for bread and water just to keep you alive for my benefit!
@MicroWave Insane how, Elon? Seems you need sanity to cooperate enough to organize a strike.
Isn't Musk just basically a venture capitalist? He's just fucking loud about it and has to have his fucked up fingers deep in all the pies?
No exactly the most constructive reply, mr. Musk. Though, you don't really have one isnt? Not the one that will be great for both sides anyway.
USA strikers should take notes
Skitsækk
Fuck Musk
if everyone pitched in, i know we could make that fat baby cry every single day
Yes, Musk, we know you're insane.
@MicroWave
Swedish workers strike - best kind of 'insanity' , imo.
Of course Elon would.
It inspires hope to see other countries pick up the ball that the USA has been so consistently dropping.
Fuck Musk.
So if you're watching this at Elon's house