Elon Musk doesn't seem to like seeing his employees working from home for too long. The richest man in the world is asking Tesla employees to return to work in the office or leave the company.
In two emails sent to Tesla employees, Musk said employees wishing to work remotely had to come to the office at least 40 hours a week.
"Anyone who wants to work remotely must be in the office at least (and I mean *minimum*) 40 hours per week or leave Tesla. This is less than we ask factory employees," Musk said in his first email, as quoted by CNN, Thursday (2/6/2022).
Musk added that employees should come to their main office, not at a branch office unrelated to their job. "For example, being responsible for staffing at a Fremont factory, but coming to an office in another state," he added.
Musk has said he is willing to consider requests to work from home under certain circumstances, but stressed that requests must be in "exceptional" conditions for approval. In a subsequent email, Musk added that employees who don't show up for work are considered to have resigned.
After the email was leaked and spread on Twitter, Musk did not dispute its authenticity. Instead, he said employees who disagreed with the policy should pretend to work elsewhere.
They should pretend to work somewhere else
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2022
Tesla's new policy looks at odds with other tech companies, including Twitter, which Musk will buy. Twitter previously said its employees could work from home forever if they felt more productive and creative.
At Tesla it's the exact opposite, and Musk insists that managers and senior employees must be present in the office. Musk gave an example of how he used to live at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California when the company struggled to ramp up production in 2017 and 2018.
"If I hadn't done that, Tesla would have been bankrupt long ago. Of course there are companies that don't need this (WFO), but when was the last time they sold a great new product? It's been a long time," he wrote in the email.
"Tesla has and will create and manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by idling," he concluded.