Tesla Posts Work-From-Home Jobs, A Reversal of Elon Musk’s Philosophy

Although Tesla CEO Elon Musk detests work-from-home jobs and once called them “morally wrong,” his company has posted open positions with wide and lucrative salary ranges.

According to Tododisca, Musk’s company is offering salaries between $79,000 and $270,000 to become one of the company’s teleworkers; that salary depends on a prospective employee’s position and qualifications.

However, according to Business Insider, Elon Musk has made it no secret that he is no fan of remote work. In 2022, Musk told the company’s executive staff that they would either return to the office or be terminated.

Musk described work from home as illogical in a 2023 interview with CNBC, “It’s like really, you’re going to work from home, and you’re going to make everyone else who made your car come in [to] the factory?” Musk said. “The people who make your food that gets delivered, they can’t work from home? The people that fix your house, they can’t work from home?”

Musk continued, “I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ‘Let them eat cake. It’s not just a productivity thing. I think it’s morally wrong. People should get off the God damn moral high horse with the work-from-home bullsh*t.”

Nicole Penn, the president of ECG Group, an advertising and marketing company, told Business Insider that although Tesla’s culture may make work from home less feasible, Musk’s stance could potentially lose him talented workers.

“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 told Business Insider. “You have to wonder if Elon will retain top talent that needs and appreciates more flexibility.”

The opening of Tesla to remote work, where previously, in 2023, Musk’s company only had three positions involving work from home, and Musk had to approve those positions personally, represents a sharp turn from Musk’s previous degradation of work-from-home positions.

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Nick Gallimore, the director of innovation at Advanced People Mechanics, told Business Insider that unless Musk changed his policy, he would need “something of a miracle if he expects people to even stick with him … let alone be more productive.”

Gallimore continued, “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. 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.”

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