‘Minimum 40 hours’: Elon Musk’s brutal 2022 WFH email to Tesla staff resurfaces

A brutal email Elon Musk sent to Tesla staff about a new anti-WFH rule has resurfaced as his plan to force government staff back into the office.

A brutal email sent by Elon Musk to Tesla staff telling them they need to be in the office at least 40 hours a week has resurfaced, amid the CEO’s ongoing war against working from home.

Mr Musk is the lead of the newly-founded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

President-elect Donald Trump appointed him to head up the department alongside fellow billionaire former Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy.

In accepting the role, Mr Musk vowed “send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste”.

He recently hinted that part of his plan could be to force government employees back into the office full time.

Now, a leaked email he sent to executive Tesla staff in 2022 has resurfaced, in which he informed employees they could “depart” the company if they didn’t want to return to the office full time.

“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,” the email stated.

“This is less than we ask of factory workers”.

The email was sent to Tesla staff in 2022. Picture: X

Mr Musk then sent a follow up email to the wider Tesla team. Picture: X

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He said that if there were any “exceptional contributors” who needed to be remote, he would review and approve those exceptions directly.

Mr Musk followed this up with another email that he addressed to “everybody”, clarifying that the 40-hour rule applied to all employees.

“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” he wrote in the 2022 email.

“Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assumed you have resigned.”

Screenshots of the emails were recently reshared to X by Chris Hladczuk, CEO of venture capital fund Hanover.

Mr Hladczuk shared the emails with the caption: “Elon Musk on why remote work is poison.”

Mr Musk then shared this post, simply writing: “Yes”.

It comes as tens of thousands of US federal and government workers landed a deal to lock in hybrid work protections ahead of the incoming Trump administration.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 42,000 Social Security Administration workers, reached an agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to protect telework until 2029, according to a message to its members viewed by Bloomberg.

Elon Musk listens as US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC. Picture: Allison Robbert/AFP

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The new deal was signed by President Joe Biden’s now-departed SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley, and agreed to allow workers to “maintain current levels of telework”.

Roughly 1.1 million federal employees – nearly half of the government’s civilian workforce – are eligible for telework, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

About 228,000 employees, or 10 per cent of civilian personnel, work fully remote with “no expectation that they [work] in-person on any regular or recurring basis,” the agency noted in an August 2024 report.

However, there has already been talk of scrapping the deal. Republican senator Joni Ernst vowed to work with DOGE to reverse the agreement.

“On its way out the door, the Biden admin is locking in telework for 42,000 @SocialSecurity bureaucrats until AFTER President Trump leaves office! Unacceptable!” senator Ernst wrote on X.

“I’ll be working with @elonmusk @VivekGRamaswamy, and @DOGE to fix this ASAP and get bureaucrats back to work.”

In a recent joint op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy suggested eliminating remote work would result in mass resignations that would help them achieve their goal of a smaller, more efficient, government.

“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” they wrote.

“If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”

Originally published as ‘Minimum 40 hours’: Elon Musk’s brutal 2022 WFH email to Tesla staff resurfaces