Elon Musk puts an end to remote work at Tesla — give 40 hours per week in the office or leave

Elon Musk reminds executives and employees at Tesla that he’s still the CEO of the company and hasn’t lost his focus no matter how occupied he is with the Twitter deal and other stuff.

On Tuesday 31st May, he sent an email to Tesla executives asking them to fully return to the office. Working remotely is not an option at Tesla anymore without putting at least 40 hours per week physically at the office or factory. Here’s the text of the email in its entirety:

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.
Elon Musk to Tesla excutives.

However, this email created a bit of confusion that Elon Musk is only addressing the Tesla executives to return to their offices and put in a minimum of 40 hours of work. Therefore Musk sent another email to everyone at Tesla and asked the employees to immediately stop remote work and get back to their responsibilities physically.

He further added his reasons for taking this decision. In this next email (below), Elon Musk reminded his Tesla employees how he spent time on the factory floor and even slept at the factory to motivate the workers.

This was a difficult time at Tesla during the Model 3 production ramp-up when most analysts were predicting Tesla’s bankruptcy and the next failed American auto manufacturer.

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
Elon Musk’s email to everyone at Tesla.

The policy is for everyone.https://t.co/AtmyAhd24b
— Sam Nissim (@SamNissim) June 2, 2022

In this 2nd email, Musk also took pointed a finger at Apple, where a large number of employees are still working remotely and the company has failed to present a new and exciting product for a while.

The concept of remote work crept in at Tesla during the COVID-19 time back in 2020 when Alameda county ordered the Fremont factory closure.

At the time, Elon Musk took the county’s aggressive step as seriously as he’s taking remote work at Tesla today. In the next step, Tesla sued Alameda county over the factory closure despite the automaker taking all possible safety measures at the work location.

So Tesla employees must be taking it seriously, as Musk has already cautioned “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned” — many Tesla executives and employees can lose their jobs, which they will never want to experience.

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By Iqtidar Ali