'Return to office or....' :Elon Musk issues strong ultimatum to Tesla employees

In a tough-love treatment to employees, Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday notified his staff that remote work is no longer acceptable at the company.

In an email sent under the subject line "Remote work is no longer acceptable" [sic], Musk wrote that "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."

The CEO went on to specify that the office "must be the main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties.

The tech billionaire also said that in case there are "exceptional contributors" who cannot work the minimum hours in the office, Musk himself would review and approve of them directly.

When Musk was asked to comment on people who think working from the office is an "antiquated concept", he replied, "They should pretend to work somewhere else."

Musk's move comes at a time when Covid-19 cases have plateaued in the United States and offices are opening up.

Musk's apparent email to Tesla's executive staff suggests Twitter's policy will change once he takes over.

In an interview with the Financial Times in May, Elon Musk had praised the office goers in China and said that the Chinese workforce was burning the '3 am oil' rather than the midnight oil. He even said that people in the US were avoiding going to office.

"There's just a lot of super-talented, hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing," they told the media organization. "They won't just be burning the midnight oil. They will be burning the 3 am. oil," Elon Musk had said, adding, "They won't even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all."