The world’s richest man and (arguably) the most puzzling SNL host in recent memory, Elon Musk, sure is a walking contradiction at times. He’s spent a lot of time (while still acting as the CEO of Tesla) trolling the Twitter CEO while possibly having buyer’s remorse about the social media platform. He can’t be thrilled about facing a $1 billion breakup fee if the reported $44 billion deal never goes through (because bots exist), and this is also the same dude whose former partner (Grimes) once revealed that he (a billionaire) wouldn’t buy a new mattress to prevent her from sleeping on a hole.
Now, it turns out that Musk is (reportedly) not thrilled with Tesla employees who want to work remotely while Covid cases rise again. An apparent email leaked to Electrek (via Forbes) reveals that Musk has ordered all Tesla workers (even those whose duties can be remotely performed) back into the office, or they can say goodbye to their jobs:
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in a follow-up email, obtained by Electrek. “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.”
Forbes goes through the past few years of Musk’s history on their issue, which includes Musk “defying county orders in California” to reboot Tesla factory production in spring of 2020. He reportedly threatened to fire workers who didn’t comply with his directive, and even though Twitter, Google, and Apple have all moved to either permanent or hybrid remote plans for office workers, Musk isn’t budging. Although Tesla and Musk didn’t directly respond to Forbes’ inquiries on the subject, Musk tweeted a response to a screenshotted email, which suggests that the leak is real.
Musk’s tweet read, “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”
They should pretend to work somewhere else
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2022
Forbes adds details and a prediction that Twitter’s remote work policies could disappear, too, according to a tweet from venture capitalist Keith Rabois, who wrote, “Elon once threatened to fire all the interns for waiting in a long line for coffee at SpaceX and installed cameras to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.”
In summary, Elon Musk apparently believes that remote work isn’t actually work and that coffee breaks hamper productivity. Very, very interesting.
(Via Forbes)