Elon Musk Takes A Swipe At UAW Strike: 'Is Anyone Gonna Be Around To Make The Actual Cars!?'

The United Auto Workers has begun a simultaneous strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers following a lack of agreement between the parties.

On Sunday, Tesla, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, whose company is non-unionized, weighed in on a post by Creative Planning’s Chief Market Strategist Charlie Bilello, who summarized the union’s demand.

The union is demanding a 40% increase in hourly pay over four years. Among the other demands are a reduced four-day, 32-hour workweek; a shift back to defined benefit pensions; cost of living adjustments; five-plus weeks of vacation; more paid holidays; and extended parental leave.

Commenting on the post on X, Musk asked, “Is anyone gonna be around to make the actual cars!?”

Bilello replied with a graphic showing automated manufacturing.

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Similarly weighing in on the UAW strike, SPAC king Chamath Palihapitiya said two options before the automakers would be to automate and replace unionized people with robots or to de-unionize. But neither is possible, he said, apparently referring to the limited automation of processes by legacy automakers such as General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) and Stellantis N.V. (NYSE:STLA).

Hyper-automated and non-unionized competitors like Tesla can now completely run away with the car market because they will be able to aggressively lower prices, Palihapitiya said.

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