Featured Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Staff / Getty
Elon Musk once sent savage emails to Tesla staff demanding their compliance with office-based working rules.
X owner Musk, 53, seemingly isn’t the biggest fan of remote working.
Last year, the businessman declared his disdain for bosses who choose to operate outside of offices, telling CNBC: “It's messed up to assume that, yes, [employees] they have to go to work but [bosses] don't. It's not just a productivity thing, I think it's morally wrong.”
He also claimed the ‘laptop class’ was living in ‘la-la land’ and that he believed those working from home were less ‘productive’ than those grinding out their days in the workplace.
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Interestingly, this isn’t a new stance for Musk to take.
In 2022, he allegedly told Tesla staff that he expected them in the building for a ‘minimum’ of 40 hours per week.
In leaked emails, shared by the popular Internal Tech Emails X account, Musk further stated that if his employees were punching less on their timesheets then he’d assume they were resigning.
“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,” Musk wrote to an email chain called ‘ExecStaff’ on May 31 2022.
“This is less than we ask of factory workers. If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly.”
He added that the office must be a main Tesla office and not a remote branch for ‘unrelated to job duties’.
Doubling down on his stance, Musk continued to send what appears to be a company-wide email with the subject like ‘To be super clear’.
The second email read: "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo-office.
"If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned."
Musk went on to insist that senior team members must become more ‘visible’ in the office before explaining he used to visit the Tesla factories on a routine basis.
He claimed this was so that his employees could physically see him working alongside them.
"If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt," he continued.
"There are companies that don't require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It's been a while.
"Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in,” he concluded.
When asked about the leaked emails by another X account, Musk defended himself and wrote: “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”
Well, that’s the Tesla staff told, huh?
