Telsa chief executive Elon Musk has ordered staff to return to the office full-time, warning remote employees that they must come into work or “we will assume you have resigned”.
Mr Musk’s demand was leaked on Thursday (US time) after two company emails outlining the heavily-worded new policy were shared on social media.
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Mr Musk wrote in the email, titled: “Remote work is no longer acceptable”.
“If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” he said.
Mr Musk confirmed the legitimacy of the leak in a Twitter post on Wednesday, reaffirming those who did not comply with the new rules “should pretend to work somewhere else”.
Tweet from @pitdesi
“The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence,” he continued.
“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.”
According to Tesla’s policy, all of its workers must spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office every week. Mr Musk noted that this was less than what Tesla asked of its factory workers.
Mr Musk said anyone who wanted to continue to work remotely must have an exception reviewed and approved by him directly, or “depart Tesla”.
The billionaire linked the policy to ensuring Tesla’s success, linking other companies’ failures to a working-from-home attitude.
“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,” Mr Musk said.
“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.”
