The dispute that has been consuming Giga Berlin for weeks just hit pause. Tesla and German union IG Metall reached a truce on Thursday in a Frankfurt (Oder) labor court, agreeing to drop the public back-and-forth over the February 10 recording incident until after next week’s works council election. The agreement, reported by Reuters, came one day after Elon Musk sent workers a video threatening to freeze the plant’s expansion.

Here’s what you need to know:

The Fact: Tesla and IG Metall agreed in labor court on February 26 to stop making public comments about the February 10 recording incident until after the works council election concludes on March 4.
The Delta: The day before the truce, Musk sent a pre-recorded video to Giga Berlin’s approximately 10,700 workers warning that the plant’s expansion won’t happen if “external organizations” push Tesla in the wrong direction — a transparent reference to IG Metall.
The Stakes: Roughly 11,000 employees vote March 2–4 in a works council election that both Tesla management and IG Metall have treated as an existential fight over the plant’s future.

What the Truce Actually Says

The agreement reached Thursday is narrow and time-limited. Both sides agreed not to repeat certain comments about the February 10 recording incident until after the works council election wraps up next Wednesday. It does not end Tesla’s criminal complaint against the IG Metall representative accused of secretly recording the closed works council meeting. Prosecutors in Frankfurt (Oder) are still investigating that case separately.

IG Metall local leader Jan Otto framed the agreement as a chance to refocus. “Now, just a few days before the works council election, we can concentrate fully on the issues (over working conditions) (…) there’s a lot to do,” he said.

Tesla’s statement took a harder line: the company said the court hearing’s result showed IG Metall was “not above the law.”

Both sides claim a win. Neither is wrong. The truce gets IG Metall out of a damaging news cycle with days to go before the vote. Tesla can point to the court process as validation that its complaint had legal standing.

Musk’s Expansion Threat Landed the Day Before

On Wednesday, February 25 — the day before the truce was reached — Musk’s pre-recorded video was played to Giga Berlin workers in plant manager André Thierig’s presence. According to Handelsblatt, which obtained audio recordings, Musk warned that “things will certainly get more difficult if there are external organizations pushing Tesla in the wrong direction.” He was explicit about the consequences: “We will not close the factory, but realistically we will also not expand.” He didn’t name IG Metall. He didn’t need to.

Thierig has been making the same argument since December, when he told the German press agency DPA that he “cannot imagine that the decision-makers in the USA will continue to push ahead with the expansion of the factory if the election results are majority in favour of IG Metall.”

IG Metall’s Jan Otto dismissed the expansion threat directly: “As long as sales figures are down, Tesla will not build a factory at all.”

He has a point. Giga Berlin’s capacity is over 375,000 vehicles per year. Tesla sold roughly 235,000 vehicles total across Europe in 2025, a 28% decline. Germany specifically dropped 48% to just 19,390 registrations. The factory is already heavily underutilized. There is no expansion to threaten.

The Election Numbers That Explain Everything

In the 2024 works council election, IG Metall candidates won the most individual votes — about 39.4% of the total — but non-union lists combined to secure a majority of the actual seats. IG Metall has spent the past two years organizing to flip that result. Tesla has spent the same period trying to prevent it.

The tactics Tesla deployed since late 2024 tell the story. In December, Thierig drew a “red line” against the 35-hour workweek demand and tied the election outcome directly to future investment at the plant. Tesla then threw an anti-union concert in Grünheide featuring rapper Kool Savas and a Cybertruck. A unilateral 4% pay raise followed, announced without works council involvement. Then came the criminal complaint against the IG Metall representative on February 10. And the day before voting began, Musk’s expansion warning played on factory screens five days before ballots open on March 2.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in Frankfurt (Oder) opened a separate defamation investigation into Thierig himself, following a criminal complaint from IG Metall over his public claims about the recording incident.

EVXL’s Take

We covered the February 10 recording incident when it broke and called it then: the criminal complaint served two goals at once. It put IG Metall on the defensive heading into the election, and it signaled to Tesla’s Austin headquarters that Giga Berlin management was actively protecting the non-union status quo.

The truce doesn’t change that calculus much. It removes the recording story from the headlines for the final days before the vote, which arguably helps IG Metall more than Tesla at this point. The union needed to get back to campaigning on working conditions. Tesla needed the recording story to keep running. Thursday’s court agreement is IG Metall getting out of the corner.

What happens after March 4 is the real story. If IG Metall flips enough seats to hold a majority, Tesla already has its excuse ready: the union’s influence drove away the expansion. Sales numbers won’t matter. The narrative is already built. If IG Metall falls short again, Tesla wins a second consecutive works council majority without signing a single collective agreement — an extraordinary outcome for a German automotive factory.

Either way, expect Giga Berlin’s workforce to keep shrinking. Headcount has already dropped from 12,415 to around 10,700 over the past year — roughly 1,700 jobs gone while management publicly denied any reductions were happening. By the end of Q2 2026, don’t be surprised if Giga Berlin’s headcount falls below 10,000 regardless of who controls the works council. The election result won’t fix the underlying problem: the factory is building cars Europe isn’t buying at the rate Tesla needs.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.