Elon Musk has given an ultimatum to his employees.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ordered that office employees stop working remotely and return to the office for 40+ hours per week or else they’ll be sacked. Electrek first reported on the policy, revealed in leaked emails sent by Musk to Tesla’s executive team on Tuesday.
“Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers,” Musk wrote.
He further stated that the office must be the employee’s prime workplace, where they contact other employees daily — “not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties.”
Moreover, he stated that he would personally evaluate any request for exemption from the policy but that “if you don’t show up, we will presume you have resigned.”
Tesla did not react to a request for comment on the policy change; however, Musk appeared to corroborate it in a tweet of his own early Wednesday when asked, “Hey, Elon…anything else you want to say to those who think going to work is an antiquated concept?” “They should pretend to work somewhere else,” Musk responded.
The policy is entirely contrary to that of Twitter, which Musk is interested in acquiring. The micro-blogging platform has previously declared that employees can work from home “forever” if they desire. “Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work,” CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted in March, just before Musk’s interest in acquiring the social networking site was revealed.
That will not be the case with Tesla, however. Musk said it’s especially crucial for senior executives to go into the office, which is one of the reasons he practically resided at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, during the company’s production struggles in 2017 and 2018.
“If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt,” he wrote. “There are, of course, companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.”
“Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth,” he added. “This will not happen by phoning it in”, he added.
Since the COVID-19 epidemic hit, like every other corporation, Tesla has permitted remote work for every function where possible.
As the pandemic fades, many companies are reconsidering their remote working policies. Many have concluded that workers are just as productive when working remotely and have decided to enable staff to continue working from home. Others have offered incentives to employees to return to the office.
Now it’s Tesla’s turn, and the business clearly fits into the latter group.