Latest news with #TakedownTesla
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is America Pissed Off Enough at Trump and Musk for a General Strike?
It's mid-April in Missoula, Montana, and Sara Nelson is asking a packed room of 8,000 people to visualize the obscenity of corporate greed and oligarchic wealth in America. 'Income inequality today is worse than it was just before the Great Depression. So picture this…' said Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a 50,000-member union. 'If you stack hundred-dollar bills high enough to reach one of our flights at 35,000 feet—that's nearly seven miles in the air—it would only be enough 100 dollar bills to equal just three percent of Elon Musk's worth. That's after he took the hit from the Takedown Tesla action.' The crowd howled with laughter. But the ultimate point of Nelson's speech at the University of Montana, delivered during a stop on Senator Bernie Sanders's 'Fight Oligarchy' tour, wasn't simply to rip the richest man in the world—as easy and amusing as that can be. Rather, she drew the connection between Musk's attempted wreckage of the federal government and the critical role of labor solidarity in stopping him. More than that, she has a specific plan to accomplish this. 'Nothing, nothing, NOTHING can move without our labor, and it's time to exercise our power in a united working class,' she said. 'We need to get ready for a general strike.' Nelson's call for a general strike, a tactic associated more with European nations, was audacious. But as the awesome popularity of Sanders's tour has shown, a broad rage against the oligarchic class is stirring in America, and labor leaders see this as a time to bring workers all across the country, including red states, to thwart a new Gilded Age and to protect healthcare and retirement benefits. A general strike—where masses of people across the country, unionized or not, walk off the job—is risky in the United States, where workers are largely at-will and stand to lose their jobs for striking. But Nelson, whose push for such a work stoppage was critical to ending the 2019 government shutdown, thinks it's time for dramatic action. 'People fight when they have something to fight with, or they fight when there's nothing left, and they have to fight,' Nelson told me. 'We're in the middle of those two things … It's going to be terrifying to anyone in charge that there would be that kind of solidarity, breaking through all of the tactics that have kept people down for centuries.' There are at least two specific movements for a general strike (neither of which Nelson has endorsed or rejected). One is a grassroots effort to get three million people to sign general strike cards—so far, more than 336,000 have done so—and then raise the goal to eight million, after which organizers will create a slate of demands and prepare to strike on a specific, and for now undetermined, date. It's a steep challenge, and there will surely be a competing list of priorities among left-leaning groups, but 'where we are now, we need to withhold our labor for things to get better,' said one of the organizers, Eliza Blum, who worked on the successful Fight For $15 movement in California to raise the state's minimum wage. The second effort also bills itself as a general strike, but it threads a legal needle to avoid violating federal law. The Taft-Hartley Act bans 'secondary boycotts'—actions where one union strikes in support of another union. But United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain has a way of getting around it. He's calling for unions to follow UAW's lead in aligning their contracts to expire at midnight on April 30, 2028. That sets the scene for a massive, entirely legal strike on May Day, 2028. The American Federation of Teachers has already approved a resolution calling on their local unions to set their contracts to expire on April 30, 2028. 'There's been talk about a 'general strike' for as long as I've been alive. But that's all it has been: talk,' Fain wrote in a column for In These Times calling for the action. And what better way to show corporations and elected officials who really runs the show? 'The fact is: without workers, the world stops running,' Fain wrote. Union membership in the United States has been in steady decline since the late 1950s; less than 10 percent of American workers are unionized, a number that sinks to less than six percent when public-sector unions are taken out of the equation. But public support for unions is near a 60-year high, according to Gallup. Last year, the polling firm found that 70 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. In the past few years, the country has witnessed successful strikes by a wide range of unions, including those representing auto workers, dock workers, communications workers in the South and actors and writers in Hollywood. It would take that kind of broad base of support to make a national general strike work, experts say. That doesn't mean everyone would have to stop working in America for a day or a longer period of time; Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor Erica Chenoweth's theory is that it takes 3.5 percent of the population (or 11 million Americans) for a non-violent social movement to succeed. But it needs to include an economically and occupationally diverse group to send a singular message to the Trump administration that the country is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. 'I think it's important to look at the entire workforce and see what efforts could be made to demonstrate to the administration, more importantly to America, that people are not alone. There is a very large majority who don't want to lose their Social Security or Medicare, Medicaid or their democracy,' Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary, told me. 'The point would be not to try to intimidate the Trump regime. The point would be to let the vast majority of Americans know that they are part of the vast majority.' Mass demonstrations might serve as a national venting session for aggrieved Americans, and might even help mobilize people in a more organized way, advocates for a general strike say. But Trump is impervious to opposition (and in fact appears to delight in it), so protests don't change his behavior. The 'write your congressman' approach just isn't working. What will work, general strike planners argue, is an action where workers stand together and show the power they have. Unlike a labor stoppage at one company or in one industry, a general strike is broader, involving workers in multiple industries and across an entire community, region or country. The grievances could be broad as well, such as general economic inequality, or preservation of popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It's something we're used to seeing in Europe (laborers in both the public and private sectors went on strike in Belgium recently to protest government austerity measures), but not in the U.S. There are some good reasons for that, notes Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. European workers have more job protections than their American counterparts; in France (where the 'Yellow Vests' protestors of 2018-19 succeeded in getting the government to scrap a fuel tax), the right to strike is in the constitution. In the U.S., most contracts have no-strike clauses, Windham said, and in an economic strike, companies can replace striking workers. Federal workers do not have the right to strike. And without a national healthcare system, American workers stand to lose health insurance along with their jobs if they strike. 'The U.S. system is more harsh than in some other countries. Workers can easily be fired, and there's no safety net. The risks of striking are very high,' said Stephanie Luce, professor of Labor Studies at the City University of New York's School of Labor and Urban Studies. A general strike is not 'off the table, but it's a developing muscle. It will take a little bit of work,' she said. America has had some notable general strikes in its history, demonstrating both the potential for unified action and the deadly response by authorities. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started in Martinsburg, W.V., and spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Buffalo, Windham said. People rallied in support in San Francisco and throughout the South. 'People weren't used to working for wages. They came from farms, and were not used to corporations,' she said. 'When strikes happened, entire communities got involved.' But they got beaten back, literally: The railroad company and elected officials sent in militias to quell the labor uprising, resulting in an estimated 1,000 arrests and 100 deaths. A 1919 Seattle general strike, primarily in support of shipyard workers and endorsed by 110 unions, paralyzed then port city for six days (though workers organized to deliver milk for children, pick up trash and serve 30,000 meals a day). A wave of general strikes in 1934 culminated with the creation of the National Labor Relations Act the following year. The last time American workers mounted a general strike, legislative retribution was swift. After 100,000 workers in Oakland joined in solidarity with 400 department store workers in 1946 as part of a series of post-war labor uprisings, Congress responded by passing the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act limiting union power. What would lead American workers to take the chance again on a national general strike? It comes down to the very real threat, Nelson said, of losing the very things unions built up, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and basic worker rights. A general strike could be a short, she added, and perhaps—as in 2019—the mere threat of a massive walkout could do the trick. 'The more we're talking about what we're willing to do, the less likely that an actual action would have to take place. The power of this is the idea and the notion that we can do this together,' she said. Even still, it's a big ask. 'What they are really asking for is for unions and their community allies to be working together on a coordinated level that is ahistorical,' said Eugene Carroll, a longtime labor educator and organizer and a Worker Institute Fellow at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But if 'there's continuing economic disruption on a big scale'—attacks on Social Security, erosion of workers' rights, more mass firings, persistent inflation—then that's 'going to allow this spark to expand,' he said. Reich used a similar analogy—and was also unsure of what will come of the smoldering fury across America. 'The tinder is there,' Reich told me. 'The material that will catch fire is certainly there. I can't tell you what specific form it will take. But I do have a feeling it will happen quite soon.'
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
'Get rid of Elon': Jasmine Crockett says Trump is distancing from 'sinister', 'idiot' Musk
Elon Musk has made it official; he will be going back to his main job at Tesla as the electric vehicle company's sales have plummeted. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a known Elon Musk hater, said it was actually Trump distancing himself from Elon Musk because of the harm Musk inflicted. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Crockette appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show on Wednesday night and said the incompetence at the federal level is incomprehensible. "And when you bring up the idiot known as Elon Musk, he is not only like very sinister and has no idea of what he's doing and people are like, 'Oh no, he absolutely knows cuz he's the richest man in the world'. Like yes, he knows how to hire smart people, but don't conflate that and believe that he's the genius because he ain't," the Congresswoman who took part in 'Takedown Tesla' protest against Musk said. "He has inflicted so much harm that even Trump doesn't want to talk about it. When was the last time you heard about Elon?" Crockett asked Kimmel. "Not much," Kimmel replied. The Congresswoman said Trump is like 'get rid of Elon' after seeing his falling ratings every day. "But the stench ain't getting off of you, Trump honey. Because you are a problem. Elon is a problem. Pete is a problem," she said. What does Elon Musk stepping down from DOGE mean? Speculations have been rife that Elon Musk would be stepping down from his role in the Department of Government. And the reasons are plenty: the widespread protest against him; and also the fact that as a special employee of the White House, his term would soon come to an end. Both Elon Musk and Donald Trump spoke about it previously. But now Musk has given a definite time period as he spoke to the investors. Elon Musk said starting next month, he will be allocating more of his time to Tesla and he will spend a day or two on government matters -- as long as the President wants. Trump once said he wants Elon Musk to continue as long as possible but Musk has to return to his core work as he owns several businesses.
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Protesters picket London Tesla showroom on global anti-Musk day
Blaring car horns on the three-lane A40 in west London are nothing new. However, on Saturday, they weren't aimed at other drivers for a change; instead it was Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, who was the target of their anger as part of the 'Takedown Tesla' movement, which has spread from the United States. 'It's too overwhelming to do nothing,' said Louise Cobbett-Witten, who has family in the US. 'There is real solace in coming together like this, everyone has to do something. We haven't got a big strategy besides just standing on the side of the street, holding signs and screaming.' The protest was part of a global day of protests planned under the umbrella of the Tesla Takedown movement. Organizers say the rallies will take place in front of more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide, including nearly 50 in California. Musk has not commented on the demonstrations. Cobbett-Witten has family in Washington DC, and is planning to move back to the US. The 39-year-old NHS worker, who lives in south London, said: 'The checks and balances have just failed. As much as people are trying to not say these words, they are fascists, they are white supremacists, they're xenophobes, they're misogynists, and they're coming for everyone. And what starts in America comes over here.' In the last fortnight, Tesla has responded to the protests outside its showroom and charging point in Park Royal by stationing a lone security guard at its gate, who said protesters had been friendly and peaceful. Dozens turned up on Saturday, their largest turnout since they began weeks ago. While Tesla sales have fallen in Europe, they rose in the UK by more than a fifth in February, according to new car registration figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Gay rights campaigner Nigel Warner MBE was attempting to hand out stickers to Tesla drivers entering or leaving the site in Park Royal. 'This is the only thing you can do to make a difference,' the 77-year-old retired accountant from London said. 'We are pretty helpless over here, the same as Europe, the only thing we can do is try to affect Tesla's share prices and sales. It is something that has been done already with the Tesla sales dropping in many places. If he can't sell his cars he is finished.' Documentary film-maker Jim Green, 56, who lived in New York and Los Angeles before moving back to the UK 18 months ago, had worked with Musk on a film a decade ago. Green said: 'He was a different person, and he was very charismatic. He was talking when I was hanging out with him about the gigafactory where the batteries were being built, and he had a very compelling argument to make about the importance of batteries, an argument he made extraordinarily articulately. So I was very much leaning in to believing this guy wouldn't turn into the fascist he has become.' He said Musk had attacked typical Tesla buyers, whom he described as wealthy liberals who care about the environment: 'Musk has gone out of his way to insult that exact group of human beings. I lived in LA during the time when everyone who was wealthy and liberal traded their Toyota Prius in for their Tesla during 2014-2015.' Retiree Anne Kajava, 59, who is originally from Minnesota but lives in Cambridgeshire, said she was concerned about the United States' change in policy on Europe and Ukraine. She said: 'I am truly concerned about a world war three. I am concerned about a civil war within the United States. You could say those are extreme views but Trump is talking about war. You have JD Vance in Greenland; it's not impossible.' Holding a banner attached to a Donald Trump toilet brush, she said: 'I used to not hesitate to say I'm an American. Now actually I'm working with an acting coach, to fake a British accent so I can turn it on and off when I want to. I don't want to be identified as American.'
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla stock extends rally with Q1 delivery data, earnings on deck
Tesla shares bumped higher in early Tuesday trading, following on from their strongest rally in four months, as investors looked to a series of key reports in coming weeks. Tesla's () months-long slump was partly reversed Monday with a near 12% leap for the EV maker, the biggest advance since September. The market move pared the decline from its mid-December peak to around 42%. 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰💵 Retail buyers appeared to drive much of the advance, having purchased around $3.2 billion of shares last week, taking the two-week total to an estimated $8 billion. The surge might have responded in part to the coordinated challenge to the EV maker's brand from the Takedown Tesla movement, which has gained traction over the past Musk's all-hands meeting last week, during which he urged Tesla employees not to sell their shares and touted the company's prospects in self-driving, robotics and energy storage, also looks to have steadied the ship. "Tesla stock goes up and it goes down," Musk told Tesla employees during the video meeting, broadcast on his X social media platform. "But actually it's still the same company. It's just people's perception of the future." The group's fundamental issues remain significant, however, with slumping sales, narrowing profit margins, product recalls and leadership questions tied to Musk's efforts with a Trump administration cost-cutting effort. Brand erosion in Europe, meanwhile, continues apace: Data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, published Tuesday, showed a 42.6% Tesla sales slump over the first two months of the year to around 17,000 units. Sales in China, meanwhile, were down 49% in February, to just under 30,700, as domestic rivals such as BYD, () Geely () and Nio () continue to gain market share. Those figures, as well as the emotionally charged protests seen around the U.S. as part of the Takedown Tesla movement plus regular factory maintenance, have cast a shadow over the group's first-quarter delivery report, expected early next week, and how they'll affect its more detailed earnings report, due later in April. Earlier this month Wall Street was estimating Tesla's Q1 deliveries at 418,000, a solid 8% gain from the year-earlier tally of 387,000. But that current estimate has been steadily pared over the past three weeks to 355,000, indicating an expected drop of 15%.Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter sees, however, an "outside chance" that Tesla's first-quarter deliveries could come in flat with a year earlier, citing data showing 17,400 registrations in China last week, the strongest so far this year. "In European and U.S. factories, where retooling generally takes longer to complete, the shutdown impact will almost certainly be larger (hence our expectation that companywide Q1 deliveries will fall year over year in Q1)," said Potter, who reiterated his overweight rating and $450 price target on Tesla stock. "That would be a solid result, in our view, given the disruptive impact of a factory shutdown earlier this quarter,' he added. Nancy Tengler, chief executive and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments and a notable Tesla shareholder, argues, however, that while EV sales are to Tesla what iPhones are to Apple, the real value is found in "Full-Self-Driving, which really is AI (and) the megautility-grade batteries that will allow green energy to be stored and utilized." "The mistake that I made with Tesla over the years is when Elon was sleeping on the factory floor and going on the Joe Rogan show and smoking pot, and his senior staff was turning over, and there were no earnings and an insider board, I felt like it was gambling, and we couldn't do that with our clients' money, so we got out," she said. More Tesla: Veteran trader takes hard look at Tesla stock price amid slump, controversy Tesla orders massive Cybertruck recall due to dangerous discovery Another Tesla rival is trying to poach EV owners fed up with Elon Musk "It was up fourfold in the ensuing five years from where we sold it," she added. "What I learned is [that] like President Trump, Musk sort of courts chaos, but you underestimate him at your peril," Tengler said. Tesla shares at last check were off 2.05% at $ in to access your portfolio
Miami Herald
25-03-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Tesla stock extends rally with Q1 delivery data on deck
Tesla shares bumped higher again in early Tuesday trading, following on from their strongest rally in four months, as investors look to a series of key releases over the coming weeks. Tesla's (TSLA) months-long was partly reversed Monday with a near 12% for the EV maker, the biggest advance since September, that pared the decline from its mid-December peak to around 42%. Retail buyers appeared to drive much of the advance, having purchased around $3.2 billion in shares last week, taking the two-week total to an estimated $8 billion, perhaps in response to the coordinated challenge to the EV maker's brand from the 'Takedown Tesla' movement that has gained traction over the past month. Elon Musk's 'all hands' meeting last week, during which he urged Tesla employees not to sell their shares and touted the company's prospects in self-driving, robotics and energy storage, also looks to have steadied the ship. "Tesla stock goes up and it goes down," Musk told Tesla employees during the video meeting broadcast through his X social media platform. "But actually it's still the same company. It's just people's perception of the future." Getty Images The group's fundamental issues, however, remain significant, with slumping sales, narrowing margins, product recalls and leadership questions tied to Elon Musk's efforts with a Trump administration cost-cutting effort. Brand erosion in Europe, meanwhile, continues apace, with data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, published Tuesday, showing a 42.6% Tesla sales slump over the first two months of the year to around 17,000 units. Sales in China, meanwhile, were down 49% in February, to just under 30,700 as domestic rivals such as BYD, Geely and Nio continue to gain market share. Those figures, as well as the emotionally-charged protests seen around the U.S. as part of the 'Takedown Tesla' movement and regular factor maintenance, have cast a shadow over the group's first quarter deliveries, which are expected early next week, and the impact they'll have on its more detailed earnings report later in April. Related: Elon Musk rides to Tesla's defense Wall Street was looking for a first quarter delivery tally of around 418,000 earlier this month, a solid gain from last year's tally of 387,000, but that figure has been steadily pared over the past three week to around 355,000. Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter, however, sees an "outside chance Tesla could achieve flat year-on-year growth" in terms of first quarter delivers, citing data showing 17,400 registrations in China last week, the strongest so far this year. "In European and U.S. factories, where re-tooling generally takes longer to complete, the shutdown impact will almost certainly be larger (hence our expectation that company-wide Q1 deliveries will fall y/y in Q1), " said Potter, who reiterated his 'overweight' rating and $450 price target on Tesla stock. "That would be a solid result, in our view, given the disruptive impact of a factory shutdown earlier this quarter,' he added. Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments and a notable Tesla shareholder, however, argues that while EV sales are to Tesla what iPhones are to Apple AAPL, the real value is found in "full self-driving, which really is AI (and) the mega utility-grade batteries that will allow green energy to be stored and utilized." "The mistake that I made with Tesla over the years is when Elon was sleeping on the factory floor and going on the Joe Rogan show and smoking pot, and his senior staff was turning over, and there were no earnings and an insider board, I felt like it was gambling, and we couldn't do that with our clients' money, so we got out," she said. More Tesla: Veteran trader takes hard look at Tesla stock price amid slump, controversyTesla orders massive Cybertruck recall due to dangerous discoveryAnother Tesla rival is trying to poach EV owners fed up with Elon Musk "It was up four-fold in the ensuing five years from where we sold it," she added. "What I learned is, like President Trump, Musk sort of courts chaos, but you underestimate him at your peril," Tengler said. Tesla shares were last marked 1.87% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $283.59 each. Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
