It's not inherently bad to want people in the office (he's free to run his company how he'd like), but that email (and especially the one sent to more general workers) read like a post on /r/im14andthisisdeep with some guy who thinks he's superior to everyone else.
I do think there's value in a CEO working along the factory workers, if only so that it's easier to empathize with their frustrations, but acting like he and he alone is the reason for Tesla's success because he was brave enough to lower himself to the factory-worker-level is just a delusion of grandeur that I have trouble even comprehending.
The funny thing is that, there I was, working from an office in another country, and I reported directly to him... remotely. But he wanted to force me to get all the people in my country's office to go back to the office, even if I knew how to work with a remote team.
Dear colleagues - as we get back to working from the office, it is important that all of us do our part to spend time together face to face to enable communication and group alignment. Remote work is not able to help Tesla advance production and innovation at the pace required to meet our goals and fully serve our shareholders. As such, myself and the leadership team are committing to at least 40 hours a week in person and need all employees to do the same. Appreciate everyone's compliance with this policy, where your manager cannot make an exception without my direct approval.
Let's charge forward with the Tesla mission and drive results.
Thanks Elon
I’d say that the fact he is a self made wealthiest man in the world (at least occasionally), might demonstrate that he is superior at least in some way to a good portion of the humans walking this earth.