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Billionaire Elon Musk, whose deal to purchase Twitter is still in the works, has issued an ultimatum to employees of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, which he founded and still runs.
They either have to start showing back up at the office to work or find new jobs.
The Washington Examiner reports:
The billionaire Tesla boss, and aspirational Twitter owner, sent two emails to employees telling them that remote work is no longer permitted. The company, like many others, has allowed remote work during the pandemic, but now, it appears Musk has had enough of the trend. The subject line of his first email was “Remote work is no longer acceptable.”
“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. This is less than we ask of factory workers,” Musk wrote, according to copies of the emails obtained by Electrek.
After one Twitter user posted a screengrab of one of Musk’s emails and asked him to comment on people who think that in-office work is antiquated and out of date, the billionaire SpaceX founder and CEO responded that those people should merely “pretend to work somewhere else.”
The Examiner added:
The CEO said that exceptions would be reviewed and approved by him directly and that a return to the “office” means a main Tesla office and not a remote branch office unrelated to the employees’ job duties.
Musk further clarified Tesla’s new office attendance policy in a follow-up email with the subject line “To be super clear.”
“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,” he noted.
Musk went on to say that the more senior a worker is with the company, the more visible their presence ought to be. He added that’s why he has often opted to sleep on the floor of Tesla factories — so workers can actually see that he is working alongside them.
“Many employers have been reticent about a return to in-office work because of how tight the labor market is and how desperate they are to hang on to employees,” the outlet reported. “A large number of workers have enjoyed the freedom that working from home entails, and companies have used the appeal of remote work as a lure when advertising job openings.
“Some corporations have tried to mix remote and in-office work with hybrid models in which employees come into the office a few days per week and are allowed to work from home on other days,” the outlet continued.
In his emails, Musk has also acknowledged that other tech-centric companies have been hesitant to force workers back into offices, going on to take a stab at them for a perceived lack of innovation recently.
“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,” Musk quipped. “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.”
Speaking of Tesla, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recently remarked she would like to offload hers over an escalating feud with Musk.
AOC revealed she bought a Model 3 Tesla back in 2020 but now wants to get rid of it after Musk teased her online.
“At the time, it was the only EV that could get me from New York to Washington on like one or one-and-a-half charges,” AOC told Bloomberg. “I would love to switch.”
“He’s a billionaire. I could care less what he thinks,” Ocasio-Cortez said of Musk’s apparent support of the GOP.
“Ocasio-Cortez bought her Model 3 to travel between Washington and her Bronx-Queens district after Covid-19 hit in 2020,” the Bloomberg report noted. “Now, the New York representative wants to ditch it for an electric vehicle made by unionized workers.”
Musk teased AOC after she went on another rant about billionaires and how she wants them slapped with even more taxes.
“Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special,” she said.
“Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy,” Musk tweeted at AOC.
