“If you don’t show up,we will assume you have resigned.“:Elon Musk has given Tesla staff an ultimatum.Credit:AP
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in an email titled “To be super clear.” “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.”
Bloomberg News confirmed that current Tesla employees received the email on Wednesday morning (US time).
“The more senior you are,the more visible must be your presence,” Musk wrote. “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.”
Earlier,Musk sent an email to executive staff requiring that they be in “a main Tesla office,not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties,for example being responsible for Fremont factory human relations,but having your office be in another state.”
In recent weeks,Musk has praised Tesla China employees in Shanghai for “burning the 3am oil” while saying that Americans are “trying to avoid going to work at all.”
Thousands of Tesla staff there have been effectively locked in for months,working 12-hour shifts,six days a week. Until recently,many were sleeping on the factory floor as part of a closed-loop system meant to keep COVID out and cars rolling off the production line.