Venture Fund Hanover CEO Chris Hladczuk shared two ‘warning’ emails that Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent to the company’s employees in the summer of 2022. The emails were titled ‘Remote Work is No Longer Acceptable’ and ‘To be Super Clear’. The loud and clear warning to Tesla employees was to start working from the office at least 40 days per week or leave the company.
Hannover CEO Hladczuk shared the two emails on X, formerly Twitter. “Elon Musk on why remote work is poison,” he wrote, along with screenshots of the two emails. Elon Musk replied in the affirmative, “Yes,” he wrote.
While one email was marked for managers, the other was for the executive staff.
Special warning to managers
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of forty hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are, not some remote pseudo-office,” Musk wrote in one email sent on May 31, 2022. He had a special warning for managers: “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”
“The more senior you are, the more visible your presence must be. That is why I lived in the factory so much that those on the line could see me working alongside them. Tesla would have gone bankrupt long ago if I had not done that.”
“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. Tesla has created and will continue to manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in,” he concluded.
Spend 40 hours in the office or leave.
In the other email sent on the day to executive staff, Musk wrote, “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.” “This is less than we ask of factory workers,” he said in the email.
“If there are particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible, I will review and approve those exceptions directly,” the email continued. “Moreover, the “office” must be 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,” he concluded.
