The billionaire founder of Tesla and outgoing Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, has taken a spectacular swipe at remote work in a rare interview.
Musk weighed in on the remote working debate during an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, reaffirming his long-held stance that workers should be required to come into the office.
Musk, who took over Twitter’s ownership earlier this year, said he was ready to hire more staff at the social media platform (after firing nearly 50 per cent of staff in his first week as CEO), but confirmed they’d need to be in the office.
“I’m a big believer that people are more productive when they’re in person,” Musk said.
While he said “there are some exceptions,” Musk said the notion of working from home is a “moral issue” and “bullshit”.
“The whole sort of work-from-home thing… there are some exceptions, but I kind of think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, let them eat cake.
“It’s like, really, you’re gonna work from home and you’re gonna make everyone else who made your car come work to the… factory. You’re gonna make the people who make your food that gets delivered that they can’t work from home, that, you know, the people like they can’t fix your house. They can’t work from home. But you can. Does that seem morally right? That’s messed up.”
The CEO said those that can work from home were living in “la la land”, and considered them to be part of the “laptop class”.
“It’s messed up to assume that yes they have to go to work but you don’t. It’s not just a productivity thing, I think it’s morally wrong.”
Musk has previously revealed he told Tesla staff they would be required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. If they didn’t, the company would assume the staff members had resigned. Musk added at the time that he would review any requests for exemptions.
Prior to Musk’s takeover, the then-Twitter CEO Parag Argawal said Twitter staff would be able to continue to work from home “forever”. In a note to employees posted on Twitter, Argawal had said that staff would be able to work from “wherever you feel most productive and creative”. Musk terminated Argawal in October 2022, along with many other top Twitter execs.
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