The county hasn’t yet said how it will react. In a discussion with the New York Times, however, district supervisor Scott Haggerty said that the county had been near an agreement to restart production on May 18th after determining Tesla had done a “pretty good job” of implementing safety measures. Musk just wasn’t willing to wait, Haggerty said — in fact, he wanted to reopen the factory on May 8th.

There’s little doubt that Tesla is under pressure to resume production. While the company had stellar first quarter earnings and could partly buoy the second quarter through deliveries of already-produced EVs, time is running out. At a certain point, it has to make new cars to avoid a huge shortfall.

Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2020

This back-and-forth has been going on for days. At one point, a county spokesperson said Tesla was an essential business, and therefore exempt from the shelter in place order. This morning, the sheriff’s office changed its tune and said Tesla was non-essential, but that it could maintain minimum basic operations, like providing security and processing payroll and employee benefits.

In a letter, obtained by TechCrunch, Tesla said, “We still do not have final word from the city, county, state and federal government on the status of our operations. We have had conflicting guidance from different levels of government.”

Because of that, Tesla is asking employees it deems essential to come to work. Other employees may be temporarily relocated to support an essential function or need to be on call. In the letter, Tesla says employees who are not feeling well should stay at home and use paid time off (PTO). They can borrow up to 80 hours if they exhaust their PTO balance.

Earlier this week, Elon Musk told employees not to come to work if they feel “the slightest bit ill or even uncomfortable.” He added that it’s “totally ok if you want to stay home for any reason.” Though, employees will have to use their own PTO if they do stay home, which could be a deterrent.

Engadget has reached out to Tesla for comment.