The policy, leaked in leaked emails Musk sent to Tesla executive staff on Tuesday, was first reported by the electric vehicle news site Electrek.
“Anyone who wants to do remote work should be in the office for a minimum (and I mean * minimum *) 40 hours a week or leave Tesla. That’s less than what we ask factory workers,” he said. Musk wrote, adding that the office should be the employee’s main workplace where the other workers with whom he or she regularly interacts are based, “not a remote branch unrelated to work tasks.”
Musk said he would personally review any policy waiver request, but that for the most part, “if you don’t show up, we’ll assume you’ve resigned.”
Tesla (TSLA) did not respond to a request for comment on the policy change, but Musk seemed to confirm it in his own tweet early Wednesday when asked on Twitter: “Hello, Elon … anyone additional comment for people who plan to come. is it an old-fashioned concept at work? ” Musk replied, “They should pretend they’re working somewhere else.” The policy is completely at odds with that of the other technology company Musk is trying to buy, Twitter (TWTR), which has previously announced that employees can continue to work from home “forever.” “If you prefer, where you feel most productive and creative is where you’ll work, and that includes working from home full-time forever,” CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a note to nearly 100,000 Twitter employees in March. “It’s important for you to see senior executives in the office,” Musk said. add that this was one of the reasons he lived essentially in the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, when the company was struggling to increase production in 2017 and 2018.
“If it hadn’t done that, Tesla would have gone bankrupt a long time ago,” he wrote. “Sure, there are companies that don’t require it, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.”
He added: “Tesla has created and will manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth,” he added. “That won’t happen by calling him.”
Surveys show that most office workers prefer the option of working from home. Since the reopening of the offices after the closure of Covid-19, many companies beyond Twitter have announced greater flexibility for employees who want to work remotely, in part as a way to retain or attract talent in a job market especially adjusted. But the richest person in the world does not seem to care about this dynamic.