US labour board accuses Musk’s X of illegally firing employee

The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has alleged in a complaint that Elon Musk-run X violated labour laws when it fired an employee who criticised the company’s return-to-work policy.

The X (formerly Twitter) employee Yao Yue encouraged others in the company’s Slack group to let it fire them instead of quitting, as she was fired for breaking an unspecified company policy.

“After 12 amazing years and 3 weeks of chaos, I’m officially fired by Twitter. Never expected I would have stayed this long, and never expected I would be this relieved to be gone,” she posted on Twitter in November last year.

Now, the NLRB has alleged in a complaint that Musk’s X broke the law in firing her, reports CNBC. A hearing on the case is scheduled for 30 January in San Francisco.

“If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation is accepted,” Musk had told Twitter employees after acquiring the company for $44 billion.

Yue alleged that the social media platform laid her off “in retaliation for her attempt to organise her co-workers not to resign, so they would have better legal footing”.

Several employees had expressed “concern and outrage” over the directive to return to the office immediately.

Yue had tweeted: “Don’t resign, let him fire you. You gain literally nothing out of resignation.” She also posted in a company Slack channel a message saying, “Don’t be fired. Seriously.”

A few days later, she was fired and told that she had violated an unspecified company policy, according to the legal document. “Yue alleges that Twitter chose her for layoff in retaliation for her attempt to organise her co-workers not to resign, so they would have better legal footing to challenge any separation from Twitter,” the document read.

Musk or X were yet to comment on the NLRB complaint.