Elon Musk gives ultimatum to Tesla employees

Elon Musk is no stranger to making headlines, and this time the Tesla chief has grabbed news spotlight all over the world for emails he sent asking employees to return to office or leave the company.

"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," the memo, first seen by Electrek, said, adding that this is “less than we ask of factory workers”.

The outspoken CEO also shared that while some exceptions could be made, he will need to personally review and approve the requests himself. He added that the “office” must be a main Tesla office rather than a remote branch office which are unrelated to the job duties.

An unverified email of from the Tesla boss was also uploaded on to Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SamNissim/status/1531810291222192130?cxt=HHwWhICx-YHWisIqAAAA

In a second email shot out by the CEO, he added that if staff members fail to show up, the company will assume that they have resigned.  “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 said.

While no official comment has been released by Musk or Tesla, in a reply to a Twitter follower asking for “​​additional comment to people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept”, Musk wrote: “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1531867103854317568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1531867103854317568%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2022%2Fjun%2F01%2Felon-musk-return-to-office-pretend-to-work-somewhere-else

As the world slowly moves towards a state of normalcy, Telsa’s mandate to return back to the office follows many other big firms requesting for the same from their employees. However, the likes of Twitter, while Musk recently pursued to take over saw its new chief executive, Parag Agrawal, tweeting in March that Twitter offices would be reopen but employees could work where they felt most productive and creative and that includes working from home full-time forever.”

Related articles:

Twitter finally agrees to sell to Elon Musk for US$44bn
Kopiko sees stocks jump after Elon Musk shows support
PR headache: 5 instances of Elon Musk's cringeworthy tweets
Twitter goes on the defensive to fend off Elon Musk's takeover bid