Elon Musk gave Tesla staff until Wednesday to either return to work or leave, stating that if they disagreed with the company’s policies, they should “pretend to work somewhere else.”

He issued a series of letters to staff, warning them that if they did not return to work, they would be fired.

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

“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” he added.

“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,” he wrote in an email.

“The more senior you are, the more visible your presence must be. 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,” Musk said.

Furthermore, he noted, the “office” must be a major Tesla office, not a “remote branch office unrelated to the job tasks, such as being in charge of human relations at the Fremont factory but having your office in another state.”

He continued, “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.”