The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, sent a harsh message to the company’s employees warning that: “If you do not show up, we will assume that you have resigned.”
In an email To which Reuters had access, Musk asked employees to return to the office or leave the company: “Everyone at Tesla must spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week ”.
“The older you are, the more visible your presence should be”, wrote the CEO of Tesla. “That’s why I lived in the factory for so long, so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If he hadn’t done that, Tesla would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.”
Related sources were consulted by Reuters and confirmed the authenticity of the email, while Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
“Tesla has created and will create and in fact will manufacture the most exciting and significant products of any company on Earth. This will not happen over the phone,” Musk wrote forcefully in the email. “Of course, 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 workers have spoken out on social networks about it, a follower on Twitter published another email that Musk would have sent to the executives asking them to work in the office at least 40 hours per week or “abandon Tesla”.
In response to the tweet, the richest man in the world replied: “They should pretend they work somewhere else.”
Other Tesla workers expressed their discontent on the anonymous application Blind, which requires users to register with the company email to prove that they work there.
“If there is a mass exodus, how would Tesla finish the projects? I don’t think investors are happy with that,” a Musk employee commented.
Stephen Knight, executive director of Worksafe, pointed out that employers, including the state government, are discovering that requiring the return of all employees is a recipe for Covid outbreaks.
“Unfortunately, Tesla’s disregard for worker safety is well documented, including its mockery of the county public health department early in the pandemic,” Knight wrote.
It is not the first time that Musk has expressed his annoyance with remote work, last month the businessman pointed out that the Americans are trying to avoid going to work, while the Chinese workers do not even leave the factory: “They will be burning the 3 a.m. oil,” he told a conference call.
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