Elon Musk is a man of the future.
A lot of people would sign that.
Building electric cars: promising.
Flying into space: promising.
But if he really wrote and meant the e-mail in which he threatened employees who remain in the home office with being thrown out, then he is also a man of the past, at least when it comes to leadership.
The pandemic has shown that employees with desk jobs usually do not need their bosses' strict gaze over their shoulders to perform well.
Studies show that in times of high home office use, the productivity of employees has not changed much.
Some find it easier to focus at home, others feel more comfortable in community, and for many, a mix of both makes sense.
The usual suspects, who are not quite as committed, also know how to swing from coffee break to coffee break within the office premises.
And for the vast majority of remote workers, what Musk claims they're just "pretending" to be working at home just isn't true.
One thing is clear: the community of all employees benefits more from presence than each individual.
This is how creative chance encounters in the hallway and social interaction arise.
There are therefore certainly good reasons for a few presence regulations within hybrid models.
Prescribing 40 hours of office work per week with a sledgehammer, however, is likely to scare off the skilled workers in demand in future-oriented industries.
Trust is the be-all and end-all of modern leadership, as it says in almost every current guide for bosses.
Elon Musk is proud to work so much that he practically "lives" in the company.
But he probably won't have time for management literature before he goes to sleep under his desk.