US Senators Richard Blumenthal (L) and Elizabeth Warren.
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Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., initiated an investigation into the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday concerning the agency’s decision to drop charges against Elon Musk’s SpaceX over retaliatory firings, according to correspondence first obtained by CNBC.
SpaceX is reportedly seeking to go public in June and eyeing a $2 trillion valuation.
Under the Biden administration, the NLRB had charged the aerospace and defense firm with illegally firing employees in retaliation for criticism of Musk in an open letter in which they alleged sexist conduct on his part, and a wider culture of sexual harassment at SpaceX.
The NLRB dismissed those charges citing jurisdictional issues in February.
Warren and Blumenthal have demanded information and records from the NLRB according to correspondence first obtained by CNBC, seeking to determine if the agency dropped the charges based on “political considerations rather than the facts at hand,” effectively bowing to the wishes of Musk, who spent around $300 million to propel President Trump back to the White House.
When the NLRB dismissed their charges against SpaceX earlier this year, they said the company should be regulated under the Railway Labor Act, which governs labor relations at railroad and airline companies, and punted the employees’ complaints to the National Mediation Board.
In their letter to NLRB, which was dated April 15, Warren and Blumenthal wrote, “In facilitating this change of agency, the NLRB was effectively killing the case: these workers’ wrongful termination charges cannot proceed at the NMB because the NMB’s governing law does not protect the same kinds of concerted activities as the NLRB’s does.”
They also said that part of NMB’s claim of jurisdictional authority over SpaceX included an “absurd” argument that SpaceX is a “carrier by air transporting mail for or under contract with the United States Government” because SpaceX has sometimes delivered mail to the International Space Station for NASA.
The senators have asked the NLRB to provide, among other things, information and records by April 29 explaining the reasons they changed their position in regard to jurisdiction, and to provide a list of all communications that took place between the agency and Musk or his representatives, and precedent, if any, for counting a rocket company like SpaceX as a mail carrier by air.
In 2024, SpaceX filed a federal lawsuit arguing the NLRB’s structure violated the Constitution and that the agency should not be allowed to take enforcement action pertaining to worker complaints of unfair treatment by employers. That suit came after nine SpaceX workers said they were terminated for sending their open letter to management.
Musk has clashed with union proponents for years, including at his automotive business, Tesla. The NLRB decided in 2021 that Tesla and Musk had violated labor laws when they fired a union activist, and when Musk wrote on Twitter in 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”
CNBC has reached out to the NLRB and SpaceX for comment.
