Musk is pushing staff back to the office, but the research is only partly on his side

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is telling employees to return to the office or resign. Research is mixed as to whether remote or in-person work is better for creativity.

In internal emails that leaked last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that his employees must spend at least 40 hours per week in the office or resign.

"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 one of the emails, which were first reported by Electrek, an electric vehicle news site.

The approach stands in contrast to the policy at Twitter, which Musk agreed to acquire in April (though he has since threatened to back out of the deal). Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in March that employees could work full time from home "forever" or choose to return to the office, whatever they felt was most productive and creative.

There's no clear-cut, research-backed answer as to whether remote or in-person work is more conducive to creativity. But the pandemic has spurred a new wave of scientific inquiry into that question.

An April study published in the journal Nature found that when video conferencing, engineers across five countries came up with fewer creative ideas than those who met in person. But that study also found that video conferencing was as effective as in-person meetings for choosing which ideas to pursue.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-staff-back-office-research-mixed-rcna32136

---