The day after the United Auto Workers said it is looking to recruit all nonunion auto factory workers across the nation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he disagrees with the idea of unions.

Musk also implied General Motors deserved to be unionized because it had a culture of hierarchy between the high-level executives and everyone else, which electric vehicle maker Tesla has never had, he said.

Musk's comments come in the wake of the UAW putting a bull's-eye on EV makers Tesla, Lucid Motors and Rivian when it announced Wednesday it was launching an unprecedented public campaign to organize some 13 nonunion automakers in the United States. The UAW is also targeting Asian and European automaker factories here. In total, it would add about 150,000 autoworkers to the union's membership.

During the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed Musk on a variety of topics including the UAW coming after Tesla to unionize its four U.S. factories located in Fremont, California; Sparks, Nevada; Austin, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

"I think it's generally not good to have an adversarial relationship between one group at the company and another group," Musk said. "I disagree with the idea of unions. ... I just don't like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing. I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in a company."

Musk takes aim at GM

The UAW did not immediately provide a comment responding to Musk's remarks.

Musk said there are many Tesla employees who have progressed from working on the assembly line to senior management jobs, himself included. Musk knows most of his factory employees, he said, because he has worked on the line and has "slept in the factory ... so I'm no stranger to them."

"There is no lords and peasants, everyone eats at the same table," Musk said of Tesla's culture. "Everyone parks at the same parking lot. At GM, there's a special elevator only for senior executives. We have no such thing at Tesla."

GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said there is no such elevator at GM's world headquarters inside the Renaissance Center on Detroit's waterfront. He said at "one point in time" GM did have an elevator reserved for executives at its Global Technical Center in Warren. The elevator led directly to the executive offices dubbed "mahogany row."

In the last two years, GM redesigned its offices in Warren and, as the Free Press reported, GM got rid of mahogany row, moving the executive offices to the middle of the Cole Engineering Center to create an open concept. GM made the executive office walls glass rather than wood.

"Mahogany row doesn’t exist anymore," Kelly said, adding that neither does that elevator.

If Tesla gets unionized, 'we failed in some way'

Following a 46-day, so-called Stand-Up Strike targeting plants at GM, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the union won 4½-year contracts across all three last month, delivering record wage gains and other wins. After that, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai offered raises and shortened progressions to top wages for U.S. factory employees.

Musk's antiunion stance isn't surprising. In 2018, Musk — who bought Twitter last year for $44 billion — tweeted that Tesla Fremont employees would lose their stock options if they joined a union. Shortly thereafter, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Musk to delete that 2018 tweet ruling it was an unlawful threat that could discourage unionizing, according to Reuters. But in July, a federal appeals court said it will reconsider a March ruling that supported the NLRB's decision, according to a Fortune and Bloomberg report.

Last week, the NLRB dismissed claims that Tesla illegally fired employees working at a New York plant to put an end to union organizing, Reuters reported.

More: Consumer Reports pummels electric vehicle reliability, praises hybrids

More: UAW launches unprecedented push to organize 13 automakers in US

Musk told Sorkin he has suggested taking a union vote in the past, but learned that the company is not allowed to conduct the vote. He said he is "incredibly appreciative" of those who build cars and has ensured prosperity by giving all employees stock options. Many have become millionaires from those options, he said.

"I don't know? Maybe it'll get unionized," Musk said. "I've said, 'If Tesla gets unionized, it'll be because we deserve it and we failed in some way.' "

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Musk takes aim at UAW's move to unionize Tesla, cites GM's culture