# SpaceX v. NLRB *Space Exploration Technologies Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board* is the case in which [[SpaceX]] answered a labor board complaint by attacking the constitutionality of the board itself. It is the first case in which a federal appeals court held the [[NLRB]]'s structure likely unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit ruled on August 19, 2025, and the ruling froze the case against SpaceX. The underlying workers' claim was never decided on its merits. It ended in February 2026, when a different agency, the [[National Mediation Board]], ruled that SpaceX is not governed by the [[National Labor Relations Act]] at all but by the [[Railway Labor Act]], the statute for railroads and airlines. The NLRB then dismissed its own complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The fired engineers lost their forum without anyone ruling on whether their firing was illegal. ## The firings In **June 2022**, SpaceX employees circulated an internal open letter. It came shortly after *Business Insider* reported that SpaceX had paid $250,000 to settle a flight attendant's sexual-misconduct claim against [[Elon Musk]], an allegation he denies. The letter called Musk's public behavior "a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us" and asked the company to distance itself from it. SpaceX fired eight of the employees involved. On **January 3, 2024**, the NLRB's Los Angeles region issued a complaint. It alleged that the firings were illegal retaliation for concerted activity protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and that SpaceX had interrogated, surveilled and threatened the workers involved. ## The counterattack The next day, **January 4, 2024**, SpaceX sued the NLRB in the Southern District of Texas. It argued that the board's structure violates Article II and that its administrative proceedings deny a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment. Its specific targets were the removal protections for the board's members and for its administrative law judges (ALJs), which the company said insulate them unconstitutionally from presidential control. The suit leaned on *SEC v. Jarkesy*, then pending at the Supreme Court. SpaceX asked the court to halt the proceedings against it and declare the NLRB's structure unconstitutional. A year of procedural fighting over venue and appellate jurisdiction followed. The Fifth Circuit dismissed one appeal on March 5, 2025 for lack of jurisdiction. ## The Fifth Circuit ruling (August 19, 2025) A Fifth Circuit panel upheld preliminary injunctions halting NLRB proceedings against SpaceX and two other employers. It held: - **ALJs.** Their two layers of protection are likely unconstitutional. They can be removed only for good cause, found by the [[Merit Systems Protection Board]], whose own members are also protected from removal. - **Board members.** The rule that members may be removed only "for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause" is constitutionally suspect. - **Harm.** Being forced to go through an unconstitutionally structured proceeding is itself irreparable harm, which justified stopping the case before any ruling on the firings. It was the first appellate decision to reach that conclusion about the NLRB. ## The exit (January–February 2026) - **January 14, 2026.** The National Mediation Board found that SpaceX falls under the Railway Labor Act, reasoning that "space transport includes air travel." The fired engineers had argued that Congress never gave that statute jurisdiction over commercial space transportation. The Mediation Board disagreed. - **February 2026.** The NLRB dismissed the complaint. The Board's action is dated February 9 in Labor Relations Update. Fox Business reported the regional director's letter, from Danielle Pierce, on February 12: "The National Labor Relations Board lacks jurisdiction over the Employer and, therefore, I am dismissing your charge." Practitioners expect the dismissal to end SpaceX's own Fifth Circuit challenge, while other employers' challenges continue in other circuits. The removal-power question was then decided for every multi-member agency by *[[Trump v. Slaughter]]* (June 29, 2026), which overruled *[[Humphrey's Executor v. United States]]*. ## Why it matters **Three exits, one outcome.** SpaceX had three routes out of the case: challenge the board's constitutionality, win an injunction in the Fifth Circuit, and get reclassified out of the NLRB's jurisdiction entirely. It used all three. The workers never got a hearing on the firings. The case illustrates the vault's [[Unitary Executive Theory]] campaign from the other end: removal-power doctrine is usually discussed as a question of presidential authority, but here it served as a defense for a company in a routine unfair-labor-practice case. **The reclassification is the durable part.** Injunctions end and doctrines get superseded. A finding that SpaceX's workforce is governed by the Railway Labor Act lasts. That law channels disputes through mediation and sharply limits when workers can strike. By Fox Business's summary, workers covered by the NLRB have stronger protections for collective action than those under the Mediation Board. The ruling moves one of the country's largest defense and space contractors out of ordinary private-sector labor law. **The timing.** On January 27, 2025, a week after [[Elon Musk]] began running [[DOGE]], the President removed NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, leaving the board without a quorum for nearly a year (see [[NLRB]]). The vault records the sequence and the overlap between the government-side actors and a litigant with a live case against the agency. It does not claim the two are causally linked. ## See Also - [[Musk Companies Labor Litigation]] — every employee and agency case against Musk's companies in one table - [[NLRB]] · [[National Mediation Board]] · [[Railway Labor Act]] · [[National Labor Relations Act]] - [[Trump v. Slaughter]] · [[Humphrey's Executor v. United States]] · [[Seila Law v. CFPB]] - [[United States v. SpaceX]] — the parallel attack on DOJ's in-house immigration judges - [[SpaceX]] · [[Elon Musk]] - [[Legal Cases Hub]]