"40 hours per week or depart Tesla": Elon Musk puts an end to remote work ^↺

Over the past few years, working from home has practically become the new standard for many employees around the globe. This work model has also proven to be very popular in the tech industry, as it allows more flexibility and a better work-life balance by eliminating unnecessarily long commutes. Unfortunately, employees at the Texas-based EV manufacturer Tesla can apparently no longer benefit from such an agreement.

In two leaked emails, CEO Elon Musk has unambiguously informed Tesla employees that “remote work is no longer acceptable”. He expects that all employees spend least 40 hours per week in their respective office, which sounds like only overtime work may be completed from a remote location. He further reiterates that presence in the office is particularly important for senior employees. Musk claims that he himself used to live in Tesla factories at times, and that the company probably would have gone bankrupt without this type of commitment.

The Tesla CEO even goes a step further and clearly mocks other companies that still allow their employees to work remotely. As a result, Musk asserts that these companies have not released a great new product in quite some time. However, the South Africa-born entrepreneur stated that he may allow remote work in some very special and exceptional circumstances, but that he would personally review these cases.

Tesla's very strict regulations regarding in-person work are undoubtedly a stark contrast to other tech companies such as Apple. The tech heavyweight from Cupertino just recently reversed the decision to gradually call its employees back to the office after the highly paid director of its machine learning division left Apple only to join Google for this specific reason. It remains to be seen if similar protests or even departures among Tesla employees could potentially call for more liberal in-person work requirements.

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