The email, titled “pause all hiring worldwide," was
sent to Tesla executives on Thursday. Tesla was not immediately available for
comments.
Musk earlier this week asked Tesla employees to return to
the office or leave the company. “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a
minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," Musk wrote in another email
sent to employees on Tuesday night.
“If you don’t show up, we will assume you have
resigned," it added.
On the other hand, Elon Musk’s demand that Tesla staff stop
“phoning it in" and get back to the office got short shrift from Germany’s
largest trade union on Thursday.
The Tesla chief executive waded into the future of work
debate by telling staff at the electric carmaker that they must return to the
office for at least 40 hours a week or leave the company, according to an email
seen by Reuters.
The IG Metall union in Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen, where
Tesla’s plant is located, said it would support any employee who opposed Musk’s
ultimatum. Tesla employs around 4,000 people in Germany and plans to expand the
workforce to 12,000.
“Whoever does not agree with such one-sided demands and
wants to stand against them has the power of unions behind them in Germany, as
per law," Birgit Dietze, the district leader for IG Metall in
Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen, said.
Employees at Tesla’s plant in Gruenheide, Germany, elected
19 people to its first workers’ council in February, setting the plant apart
from others run by the carmaker in the United States and elsewhere without
union representation, which Musk has fiercely resisted.
Some of the workers are part of IG Metall which represents
workers across automotive companies and other industrial sectors.
In Germany, there are currently no laws enshrining a right
to work from home but the labour ministry is working on policies that would
increase flexibility for workers. Many large employers, including automakers,
have already embraced hybrid working models in the wake of the coronavirus
pandemic which forced companies to send staff home to work.
“We have a fundamentally different view on creating an
attractive working environment, and stand for empowerment and personal
responsibility in our teams to balance the ratio of mobile and in-person
work," said Gunnar Kilian, Volkswagen board member responsible for human
resources.
Luxury carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz echoed that view when
asked about Musk’s ultimatum.
“Hybrid working is the working model of the future…
different forms are possible, from complete presence to predominantly remote
working," a Mercedes-Benz spokesperson said.
Musk, who has helped shift the traditional car sector to an
all-electric future making himself the world’s richest man in the process, had
blunt words for companies that didn’t require staff to be back in the office
full-time.
“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," Musk wrote in the email.