Will Elon Musk change Germany?

THIS IS ASEEUSE big week for Tesla’s “gigafactory” in Grünheide, near Berlin. According to the German press, the American electric-car maker will get the final green light from local authorities to start operations within days. In one way, it already has. On February 28th Tesla workers elected their first works council, a group of employees that in German law co-decide with managers things like working hours, leave and training.For Elon Musk, Tesla’s anti-union chief executive, this must rankle. He has tried to shield his first German plant from Germany’s strict labour laws by incorporating the business as a Societas Europaea (), a public company registered under corporate law that is exempt from some “co-determination” rules, such as the requirement for firms with more than 2,000 employees to give workers half the seats on supervisory boards. s are not, however, exempt from having a works council.