End WFH or quit, Musk tells his staff
‘Do 40 hours in the office ... or we’ll assume you resigned’
TESLA tycoon Elon Musk has told his workers to get back to the office or find a new job.
the world’s richest man emailed employees at his electric car company, saying they could work from home – but only after they had done 40 hours at their desk.
In a leaked message, the tesla chief, 50, told executives: ‘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.’
A second email from the boss, titled be super clear’, said: ‘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 South African entrepreneur, worth about £175billion, added: ‘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?’
Asked by industry website Whole Mars Catalog if he had any comment for people ‘who think coming into work is an antiquated concept’, Musk responded: ‘they should pretend to work somewhere else.’
Musk previously blasted Americans for ‘trying to avoid going to work at all’ – comparing them with workers in China who stay at the factory ‘burning the 3am oil’.
In April, staff at tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai were made to sleep on the factory floor when production resumed after a three-week shutdown under China’s strict zero-Covid policy. Workers were given sleeping bags and mattresses.
In May 2020, defying lockdown measures, Musk reopened a tesla factory in Fremont, California. By December, 440 cases of coronavirus had been reported at the plant, according to data obtained by the legal information site Plainsite.
Last year, Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, reported 132 Covid cases at its Los Angeles
‘Pretend to work somewhere else’
area HQ. While some big tech employers have embraced voluntary work-from-home policies permanently, others, such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, want people back, noting the value of in-person staff interactions.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted in March that its offices would reopen but employees could work from home if they preferred. that could change, with Musk having agreed a £35billion deal to buy the social media site and take it private.