Elon Musk tells Tesla staff they face being fired unless they do 40 hours in the office

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told executive staff at the company they face being fired unless they work at least 40 hours a week in the office.

In a leaked email sent to workers with the miss-spelt subject line ‘remote work is no longer acceptble’, Musk wrote that any executive staff who wish to work remotely must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week ‘or depart Tesla’.

He added that the requirement for executive staff to work at least 40 hours in the office is ‘less than we ask of factory workers’.

Musk continued: ‘If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly.’ 

Musk went on to write in the email that the office ‘must be a main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties, for example being responsble for Fremont factory human relations, but having your office in another state’. 

Responding to a question on Twitter from a follower about whether he has a comment to ‘people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept’, Musk wrote back: ‘They should pretend to work somewhere else.’

In a leaked email sent to workers with the miss-spelt subject line ‘remote work is no longer acceptble’, Musk wrote that any executive staff who wish to work remotely must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week ‘or depart Tesla’

Musk has previously hit out against remote working policies and blasted Americans for ‘trying to avoid going to work at all’ and compared them to staff in China who stay at the factory ‘burning the 3am oil’.

In April, staff at Tesla’s Gigafactory were made to sleep at work when production resumed after a three-week shutdown. 

The factory started operating as a ‘closed loop system to avoid further shutdowns caused by China’s strict Zero Covid policy.

Workers were given a sleeping back and mattress and part of the factory floor to sleep on.  

Responding to a question on Twitter from a follower about whether he has a comment to ‘people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept’, Musk wrote back: ‘They should pretend to work somewhere else’

Last month, Musk, who is currently in negotiations with Twitter over buying the social media giant, seemingly took aim at the company’s lax remote working policies.

He said he asked his Twitter followers if he should transform the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters into a homeless shelters ‘since no one shows up anyway’.

It comes after Twitter brass – who offered staffers the option of working from home ‘forever’ during the pandemic – reopened its offices March 15, with remote work remaining an option for staffers.

More than a month later, as Silicon Valley’s tech workers are starting to filter back to the office as Covid-19 cases plummet, it looks as if the CEO’s faith in staffers’ desire to return to work in-person was misplaced – something new board member Musk seemed to hone in on with his evidently mocking post.

Google, for instance, told employees in April that it would begin requiring employees to return in person at least three days a week.

Apple similarly announced that by April 11, employees will have to work from the office at least one day a week.

Twitter, meanwhile, has not issued any in-person requirements for its staffers – a decision Musk seemingly panned in his post.