Elon Musk Gives Tesla Workers An Ultimatum: Return To The Office Or Resign

Billionaire Elon Musk seems to think that employees aren't giving their full effort if they work from home.

Although many companies let their employees work from home due to social distancing restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SpaceX founder wants to see all of his employees back in the office.

Immediately.

NPR reported that Musk is demanding his employees to return to the office for at least forty hours a week or they’ll be out of a job. On Tuesday, the electric car news site Electrek revealed the news in a series of leaked emails that were posted online.

In the messages, Musk wrote, “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.”

The world’s richest man (at least according to Forbes) insisted that the employee offices must be a “main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties.”

In one email, Musk said that he would review any requests for exemptions from this policy and approve them on a case-by-case basis. However, he wants to see people back in the office immediately. As he wrote in the email, “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

Musk seemed to defend his controversial policy by saying, “Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth.” He told his employees “This will not happen by phoning it in.”

One Twitter user attached a screenshot of the leaked email, reading, “Elon to Tesla team: no more remote work.” They quoted their tweet, adding, “hey elon a lot of people are talking about this leaked email, any additional comment to people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept?”

Musk replied, “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”

As NPR noted, Musk had said that Americans are trying to “avoid going to work at all” in a previous interview with the Financial Times. He had praised employees who work at his factory in China, saying that they don’t “even leave the factory” as they work around the clock.

Many workers with young children prefer to work at home due to difficulty obtaining childcare. Disabled workers are better able to manage their needs by working from home. Taking a look at the rising price of gas, many workers are reticent to return to their long commutes.

That being said, if you work for Tesla, it seems that you no longer have a choice.

As one user tweeted, “If working remote was good enough to keep companies a float during a once in a 100 years global pandemic then it should be good enough to keep things a float after. Only bad managers and Bad CEO's would be afraid of a remote workforce.”