Elon Musk's 'antiquated' views on working from home threatens to rob Tesla of top talent, experts say

• Elon Musk emailed Tesla employees saying they should work a minimum of 40 hours in the office.
• He said that remote work can't be as effective or as productive as working from a physical location.

Elon Musk recently told Tesla employees they must work a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office.

However, experts say the world's richest man is wrong to say that logging on from home during the pandemic "tricked" people into thinking they don't need to work hard.

Nick Gallimore, director of innovation at Advanced People Management, told Insider that Musk would need "something of a miracle if he expects people to even stick with him ... let alone be more productive."

"Musk's comments – that remote work simply can't be as effective or as productive as working from a physical location – put him in a small minority of business owners who are betting the future of their organizations on the organization design principles of the past," he said.

Gallimore, who consults on HR issues, added: "The odds are stacked against him: with many different pieces of research suggesting that as few as 10% of people actually want to work from the office full-time."

Insider contacted Musk for comment through Tesla.

Pew Research Center, an independent US think-tank on social issues, found that people who are continuing to work from home do so because they want to, not because they have to.

If Musk does eventually take control of Twitter, his demands could disrupt the company's remote working arrangements.

Nicole Penn, president of an advertising and marketing agency called EGC Group, told Insider: "Every employee has environments that either increase or decrease their productivity. If Tesla's culture is built on collaboration and ideas born on the factory floor, it's not possible for a remote team member to plug into that efficiently."

Penn believes the inflexibility of working in the office full-time is "antiquated" and ruling out any remote or hybrid workers excludes potential high-performing candidates. "You have to wonder if Elon will retain top talent that needs and appreciates more flexibility," she added.

After making a $44 billion offer to buy Twitter, he appears to be edging towards abandoning the deal over its refusal to prove the number of fake accounts.

In 2020, Twitter was one of the first major tech companies to offer a work-from-home "forever" policy.

More recently, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said employees could work from home forever too. Australian software billionaire Scott Farquhar branded Musk's decision "something out of the 1950" and said his employees have the choice to work from wherever they please, calling it "Team Anywhere."

Musk envisions productivity and requires Tesla employees to work a minimum of set hours in the office hasn't been welcomed by many – it's been dubbed old-fashioned. Musk believes there's no secret to a successful business: work and work hard.

But Musk isn't alone in believing that work in the office is best. Joe Camberato, CEO of National Business Capital, which offers small loans for businesses, said that regardless of the industry, "I still believe that amazing culture is built by working together in an office."

"I agree with his statement because his business is building cars in a factory, and I don't really understand how you can do that in the most effective way remotely," Camberato added.

Musk said in his initial email that it is important for senior managers to be seen in the office. That was one of the reasons he lived at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, when the company was struggling to increase production in 2017 and 2018.

"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," Musk wrote.