The downside musk presented was a lie though: a union could absolutely bargain for stock options.
That's their prerogative.
Also FWIW Musk clarified that he was talking about the fact that no UAW employees have stock options at any other company.
Not sure what the laws are. There might be laws saying that you can't discriminate against people in unions, so in order not to hand stock options to unionized employees, they might have to withhold stock options from all employees?
(No clue, just speculating.)
I mean yes. And then a union could strike. At which point elon would have a decision to make: is proving a dumb point worth his business?
> Also FWIW Musk clarified
Presumably on lawyers advice.
> no UAW employees have stock options at any other company.
But that,as others have explained, isn't relevant. Nothing stops the Tesla union from maintaining those perks, and options aren't valuable at most auto companies anyway, so aiming for different perks is superior.
> [...] because otherwise they could be demanding something more valuable?
Like twice as many stock options? I'm a bit confused. Stock options are fungible. You can make granting of stock options worth arbitrary many dollars, by eg increasing the volume or lowering the strike price etc.
When a direct relationship exists between the parties, this is a possibility. When there is a third party dictating what happens, this is much less realistic.