SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Elon Musk is demanding his companies' workers return to the office — a mandate which appears to be in direct conflict with the flexible policy famously being implemented at Twitter, the social media giant Musk is on the verge of acquiring.
Musk on Tuesday sent two separate but similar memos to his employees at Tesla and SpaceX requiring them to be in the office a minimum of 40 hours per week.
In his email to SpaceX employees, which was acquired by The New York Times, Musk wrote that workers who do not abide by those rules would be fired. Meanwhile, in his memo to Tesla sent to the electric car company's executive staff – which was leaked on Twitter and seemingly confirmed by Musk – he wrote that "anyone who wishes to do remote work" must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week and those who did not, should "depart Tesla."
The new policy comes just over a month after Musk, the richest man in the world, reached a roughly $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the San Francisco-based social network has consistently and publicly encouraged its employees to work from home.
Towards the start of the pandemic two years ago, former CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey went as far as to say that employees would have the option to work remotely "forever" if they wanted to.
When Twitter's offices, including its headquarters in San Francisco, reopened in March, CEO Parag Angrawal struck a slightly different tone when addressing the company's approach to flexible work. While he maintained that employees were welcome to work "wherever you feel the most creative" even if that includes "at home forever," he added that distributed working will be "much, much harder," seemingly encouraging those that are able to return to in-person work.
Musk has not said whether his mandatory in-office policy will also be implemented at Twitter once his purchase is completed.
Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora told KCBS Radio in an emailed statement on Wednesday, "We've no plans to change our policy around flexible work at this time. We'll politely decline to comment further."
Musk's deal with Twitter is expected to close sometime in 2022.
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