Musk to Tesla and SpaceX workers: Be in the office 40 hours a week or quit

Musk has ordered employees of both companies to either work in the office full-time or quit their jobs.

On Tuesday, Musk sent two memos to employees that said they had to be in the office at least 40 hours per week. Musk wrote in a new memo that this is less than we ask of factory workers. The subject line of the email was "Remote work is no longer accepted."

Musk seemed to agree with the authenticity of the memo. Musk said they should pretend to work somewhere else when asked if they think coming into work is an antiquated concept.

Musk sent the first memo to the email group. A second leaked memo that gave a similar ultimatum to all employees was sent by Musk on Tuesday night. Two sources confirmed the authenticity of the email that was sent to all of the employees.

The New York Times reported that Musk sent a similar memo to his employees.

Musk: No “remote pseudo office”

The subject line of Musk's second email was "To be super clear."

Musk wrote in the leaked company-wide memo that everyone at the company must spend at least 40 hours a week in the office. We will assume you have resigned if you don't show up.

The email continued.

The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much—so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.

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 and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in.

Thanks, Elon

According to the NYT report, Musk used the same language in his email to the employees of SpaceX, but swapped it with the language of his company,Tesla. Musk wrote that if he had not done that, the company would have gone bankrupt. SpaceX will create and manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company in space. This won't happen by calling it in.