Tesla founder Elon Musk is locked in a bitter – and vocal – battle for influence at his firm’s electric car plant outside Berlin.
The billionaire’s opponent: Germany’s most powerful auto industry union IG Metall. It is determined to secure a majority of seats in the works council that agrees conditions for Tesla’s estimated 11,000 German employees.
Before Wednesday’s vote for a new council, workers at the plant, which opened in 2022, sat in on a pre-recorded video conversation with the billionaire chief executive.
In it, Musk cast doubt on the long-term expansion plans in the plant in Brandenburg, near the Polish border, unless it remained “free from external influences”.
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Musk didn’t mention IG Metall by name, but didn’t need to. With more than two million members in total in Germany, IG Metall has been dominant in the domestic metalworking and auto industries for decades, and is already the factory’s biggest union.
In the outgoing works council it controlled two-fifths of seats, the largest bloc, a position it hoped to expand in this week’s election. But rival unions, including one representing the plant’s Polish workers, have often co-operated to block IG Metall proposals.
Smaller unions accuse the larger rival of an aggressive tone and retrograde stance with management, while IG Metall representatives accuse some smaller unions of being too firm-friendly.
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In one case they accuse them of backing company efforts to oust IG Metall members – including works council representatives.
“We want, fundamentally, a works council that acts for the interests of the workforce and not the management,” said Markus Sievers, IG Metall spokesman for its Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony division.
The row between union leaders and Tesla management in Brandenburg escalated last month, with each side taking legal action against claims by the other.
The union secured an injunction against Tesla plant chief Andre Thierig, forbidding him from repeating claims – denied by the union – that an IG Metall works council member made an illegal recording of a board meeting on his laptop.
Thierig has hit back, claiming the union spreads false claims about the firm: “Whoever is always against everything and spreads bad atmosphere is not one of us.”
Union representatives accuse Thierig and Musk of blaming workers and their union representatives for slower expansion plans. The real cause is a slowdown in sales, IG Metall says, thanks to public pushback against Musk’s political career and rising competition from China.
New Tesla registrations across Europe dropped 17 per cent in January, the 13th consecutive decline.
Sales figures provided by an industry analyst to the Handelsblatt daily suggested the Brandenburg plant produced 149,000 cars in 2025, down 30 per cent on the previous year.
That has, in turn, prompted a 14 per cent cut in the workforce, a loss of 1,700 jobs. According to the Handelsblatt, the factory is often working at only 40 per cent capacity – claims denied by management.
IG Metall representatives hope they will secure a works council majority, to push back against further job cuts and other controversial practices such as home visits of sick employees.
Laura Arndt, an IG Metall works council candidate, said: “Many colleagues have existential worries because, particularly on the [production] line, they see how people are fired around them, in particular after illness.”
