Elon Musk wants his employees to return to the office or quit. This policy was known through a leaked email that the billionaire sent to his Tesla staff. The email with the subject line “Remote work is no longer acceptable” is circulating on the internet and has caused a lot of controversies.
In this email, Musk explains to their executive employees that they must be in the Tesla office for a minimum of 40 hours a week. And, that any remote work must be done outside of those hours. This is less than what we ask factory workers to do,” Musk wrote.
Also, he added that the office should be the employee’s main workplace, where they meet their colleagues with whom they interact regularly: “not a remote branch unrelated to their job duties.” Further in the email, the magnate clarified that the “office” must be a main Tesla head office and not a remote branch office.
Meanwhile, Musk appeared to confirm his stance in the memo via a Twitter message, stating that employees who are unwilling to comply with the new rules should “pretend to work somewhere else”.
Twitter’s remote work policy
This policy contrasts with the one from another tech company Musk is trying to buy: Twitter. The platform previously announced that employees can continue to work from home “forever” if they prefer.
CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a note to Twitter’s nearly 100,000 employees in March “Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work. And that includes working from home full-time forever.” Just before Musk’s interest in buying Twitter was made public.
In a world where remote work has been proven to work this is yet another of Elon’s controversial stances. However, he is fully entitled to establish the policies he wants in his companies.
What are your thoughts on this decision? Do you think Musk is right about remote work?