Elon Musk has invited the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to hold a vote at its Californian factory.

Tesla’s chief executive has traditionally been viewed as anti-union and the move comes shortly after he criticized the Biden administration to provide union-made electric vehicles with an additional tax incentive.

Initially responding to a tweet from rock star Gene Simmons of Kiss calling on the Biden administration to give Musk and Tesla the credit they are due, Musk stated that Tesla has built two-thirds of all EVs in North America and noted that it compensates its employees well.

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“Our real challenge is Bay Area has negative unemployment, so if we don’t treat and compensation our (awesome) people well, they have many other offers and will just leave,” Musk wrote. “I’d like hereby to invite UAW to hold a union vote at their convenience. Tesla will do nothing to stop them.”

Federal law stipulates that at least 30 per cent of workers at a plant or company need to sign a petition showing they want to join a union for an election to be held, Reuters reports.

Last year, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ruled that Tesla violated U.S. labor laws and ordered Musk to delete a tweet he made in 2018 stating that employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union.

According to labor professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley, Harley Shaiken, the tweet could help Musk improve his image with workers and the Biden administration. However, labor and employment law professor at the University of North Carolina, Jeffrey Hirsch, doubts Musk’s motivations.

“He has a history of being quite anti-union. I personally don’t take him at face value on this,” he said.