Elon Musk tells Tesla workers that ‘remote work is no longer acceptable’

Elom Musk has told Tesla workers to head back to the office or else.

“Remote work is no longer acceptable.” This was the subject line of the email Elon Musk sent to the company’s executive team on Tuesday.

Musk’s desire to end remote work for Tesla employees and sets expectations for working in the office full-time:

“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.”

Musk, in response to a screenshot of his leaked email, tweeted this apparent confirmation: “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”

Musk’s decision to force Tesla employees to fully return to the office comes at a time when many tech companies are reconsidering remote work policies. Reddit, 3M, Spotify, Airbnb, and Oracle are just some of the companies that now have permanent hybrid or remote work policies in place. Apple, which initially took a hard-line approach by mandating employees start coming back into the office in early April, has since delayed this plan because of major pushback and has given them the option of opting out of the return-to-work program.

Twitter is yet another example of a tech company which has adopted a hybrid work model — and also happens to be the company that Musk is in the process of acquiring.

Musk explained his decision in a follow-up email to staff, saying he wants senior leadership to set an example by being “more visible.” Visibility and time spent in the factory is now the apparent key to Tesla’s success. “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 said.

Continuing with this logic, Musk stated that companies which don’t have strict return-to-office mandates are failures. “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.”

Ever the diplomat, Musk says he will review any exceptions directly for any “particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible.”

In other words, you’d better be a genius with an oxygen allergy to work remotely at Tesla.