Tesla founder Elon Musk has sent a memo to all company workers through which he informs them that working from home will no longer be an option for them and he expects them to spend a minimum of 40 hours per week at the office.
The memo was obtained by Bloomberg and shows that the company – and subsequently, Musk himself – is giving workers an ultimatum as it says that people who do not accept these new terms should “depart Tesla”.
Musk himself responded to a screenshot of the memo that was posted on Twitter, essentially confirming its authenticity. More specifically, the billionaire stressed that people should “pretend to work somewhere else” when asked to make a comment towards people who “think coming into work is an antiquated concept”.
However, when asked to comment about the issue, the company gave no response, giving further fuel to the rumours that their press department has been dissolved.
Within the memo, Musk stresses that he is still willing to take into consideration the circumstances of his employees when they ask to work remotely, however he adds that these cases will be “exceptional”.
“If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly,” he wrote. Working 40 hours in person, he said, is “less than we ask of factory workers.”
Through a follow-up email, the Tesla owner explains his hard line stance to his employees, stressing that he used to spend his nights in the company’s factory.
“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.”
He closes his email by taking a shot at other corporations in the industry.
“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.”
The pandemic forced companies to become more flexible and change their approach around how people work. However, now that the world seems to – finally! – be coming out of it, there appears to be a bit of perplexity regarding the way that people interact with their workplace with some companies, such as Apple, going for a hybrid model.
But despite how all those other companies choose to go about it, one thing’s for certain: Musk’s approach is not going to have many fans within the industry!
