X’s firing of an employee who rejected a return-to-office policy imposed by Elon Musk last year was illegal, the National Labor Relations Board alleges. In what technology-vp&sref=10lNAhZ9″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Bloomberg;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:1;pos:1;itc:0″> Reportedly the NLRB’s first formal complaint against X Corp., filed on Friday, the labor board accused the company of retaliating against software engineer Yao Yue for attempting to organize workers in the wake of the new policy. After Musk gave then-Twitter employees an ultimatum in November 2022 to return to the office, Yue urged others not to resign in response, but to “let him fire them.”
At the time, Musk had told employees: “If you can physically get to an office and don’t show up, your resignation is accepted.” Yue was fired five days after tweeting about it and writing a similar post on Slack. When he said goodbye to her, he filed by an NLRB branch in San Francisco alleges that the company violated federal labor law by “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees” exercising protected rights, according to . The hearing is now set for January 30.
The formal NLRB complaint may be the first for X, but allegations of retaliation against employees are nothing new for a company run by Musk. In early 2023, Tesla workers in Buffalo, New York, accused the company of and in 2022, eight SpaceX employees claimed they were fired for criticizing Musk.