I found this interesting. On one hand, it is a strike against Cancel Culture (though it benefits Musk). Should not be employer’s business what you do off the clock. On the other hand, I remebered the “Ima stab you!” girl who was fired from her banking job for he video on social media. There needs to be a way to keep workplace or school safe from psychos and potential terrorists.
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I guess it comes down to the definition of unfair.
I certainly wouldn’t want someone who spends their time off directly threatening or bullying others working for me. That would show a potential threat to my customers and employees.
But reasonably stating positions I might not agree with should not be grounds for termination either. Though I could also see a company facing negative economic consequences if one of their employees is on Twitter/X promoting animal sacrifice or some other broadly socially unacceptable position. Guess there is a lot of grey area. An employer has an obligation to ensure their company can turn a profit and keep their employees employed and their customers satisfied.
From a legal standpoint aren’t most positions “at will” meaning the company can fire employees for any reason they want that isn’t considered illegal such as based on race, gender or sexual orientation? If so then Musk isn’t going to win a lot of cases on legal grounds though he could use his billions to force companies to capitulate and settle to avoid all the legal fees.
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Here in lies the problem, How do YOU define these terms? How do I define these terms, How do the COURTS define these terms?
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Yup that is the problem. The only people guaranteed to benefit from this are the lawyers.
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Strong words and promises. I’ll be surprised if actual dollars and lawsuits follow.
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This is Elon Musk. I don’t know that he has a habit of using strong words and promises with no follow through
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Every lawyer has beaucoups of people who come into their offices every week wanting to sue their employer because of alleged “unfair” treatment. Even Elon Musk doesn’t have enough money to deal all those cases.
I’m sure he won’t deal “all” the cases. Because not all of the cases have merit.
But I will not be surprised at all when actual dollars and lawsuits do materialize.
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True, but someone – 1, 10, 100, 1,000 employees, maybe an AI? – will have to screen the cases to decide which ones have merit and are worth spending even more money on to proceed with. I think this may be a case of Elon’s mouth running away with his a^%.