Elon Musk is demanding that Tesla employees cease remote work or be fired, in two emails sent to staff of the electric car company on Tuesday.
In the emails, which were leaked to electric car news website Electrek, Musk stated that all employees must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week or depart the company. He also wrote that he will review potential exceptions directly, but only for “particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible.”
Musk reiterated the statement in a follow-up email, specifying that the office must be a main Tesla office and not an off-shoot location. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” reads the memo. Musk also took digs at similar companies that continue to allow work from home.
“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,” he wrote.
Although Musk has not made an official public statement regarding Tesla’s work from home policy, he appeared to confirm the news on Twitter Wednesday morning. In response to a tweet that said “Hey Elon…any additional comment to people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept?,” Musk replied: “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”
They should pretend to work somewhere else
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2022
This isn’t the first time Musk has demonstrated a low opinion of work from home protocols. After Apple announced that it delayed a plan to require employees to be in office three days a week due to a COVID resurgence this May, Musk took a swipe at the company by tweeting a lazy dog meme underneath a Bloomberg News story.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022
Read the full leaked emails below:
First email:
Subject: Remote work is no longer acceptable
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.
If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly.
Moreover, the “office” must be a main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties, for example being responsible for Fremont factory human relations, but having your office be in another state.
Thanks,
Elon
Second email:
Subject: To be super clear
Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.
The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much – so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.
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. This will not happen by phoning it in.
Thanks,
Elon