Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned executive personnel that they will be fired if they do not work at least 40 hours a week in the office. Musk said in a leaked email to employees, the CEO revealed that ‘remote work is no longer acceptable’ and that any executive personnel who wished to work remotely should be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week ‘or depart Tesla.’
The CEO, responding to a follower’s question on Twitter about whether he has any advice for those who think coming into work is an “antiquated concept,” said that they “should pretend to work somewhere else.”
Musk has previously criticized remote working policies, accusing Americans of trying to refrain from going to work at all” and comparing them to factory workers in China who “burn the 3am oil.”
When production resumed following a three-week suspension at Tesla’s Gigafactory in April, employees were forced to sleep at work. To avoid repeated shutdowns prompted by China’s rigorous Zero Covid regulation, the factory began working as a “closed loop system.” Workers were provided with a sleeping bag, mattress, and a section of the factory floor to sleep on. Each person received approximately $63 per day in food, but they were expected to work 12 hours a day, with one day off every six days.
The billionaire also asked his Twitter followers if he should turn the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters into homeless shelters as no one showed up for work.
Looking at other companies, Google informed employees in April that they would be required to return in person at least three days per week.
Employees have been required to come to the Apple headquarters two days a week since April, and there is no indication that this will change. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been enthusiastic about his staff’s return to work, arguing that a hardware-heavy corporation like Apple needs its employees to be physically together to design its physical products..
Meanwhile, Twitter has not set any in-person requirements for its employees, which Musk appears to have criticized in his tweet.
Goldman Sachs has also lobbied for bringing staff to office five days a week after hardly half of the bank’s 10,000-person personnel reported to headquarters in New York City when the office reopened on Feb. 1 following the Omicron surge.
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