Just when we think that Elon Musk cannot disappoint us further, he sets a new record for himself. He has now announced that Tesla and SpaceX will observe Juneteenth as a holiday which sounds like a reasonable decision, right? Well, wait for it! It won’t be a paid holiday.

Juneteenth which is also known as Freedom Day is celebrated because Major General Gordon Granger and Union troops arrived in Texas on this day to announce that slavery was no longer a law in the county. This also carries weight because of the continuous struggles of black people against systematic racial oppression, especially in the light of recent events like the murders of George Floyd and others at the hands of police violence.

Many organizations decided to pay respect to this day and observe a holiday to honor the struggles of all the freedom fighters and black people who have to face this struggle every day. Nike, Twitter, and the NFL gave a paid holiday to the employees, and companies like Google canceled all unnecessary meetings on the day.

Source: Twitter

So, Musk jumped on the bandwagon saying,  “Juneteenth is henceforth considered a US holiday at Tesla & SpaceX.”

However, just when the appreciation started to pour in for the CEO, he decided to ruin his own reputation by saying that like other holidays at Tesla and SpaceX, workers would have to use previously allotted paid time off, or vacation day to take the day off for Juneteenth.

Source: Twitter

So basically, if you take a day off at Tesla, it will be counted as an unpaid absence. This was obviously met with backlash on the social media site.