At this point, Elon Musk saying something controversial is no longer surprising. The tech billionaire expressed his opinion about people who work from home, and weirdly enough, it was part of his answer to a question about pricing for Tesla.
Against Work-from-Home Setup
In the past few months, it's been clear that the Tesla CEO is not too fond of the idea that a person can and should work from home. After all, he did implement a return-to-office mandate which received a lot of backlash from workers who didn't need to be in the office.
During a third-quarter earnings webcast for Tesla, the interviewer asked Musk about the pricing of the vehicles from Tesla, he veered the conversation to the "why doesn't everyone work from home crowd," stating that it's "like some real Marie Antionette vibe."
"What about all the people that have to come to the factory and build the cars? What about all of the people that have to go to the restaurant and make your food and deliver your food?" the tech billionaire continued, as mentioned in The Verge.
Upon getting to the subject of lowering the price of a Tesla and the price elasticity in the current macro environment, he stated that he slept in the factory so many times "because it mattered." Before that, he even said that people who work from home are "detached from reality."
These statements are no longer shocking, especially with the recent events of Musk mandating his employees to return to the office. Back in November 2022, the X owner sent his employees an email saying that they should prepare for difficult times ahead.
In the same email, he said that remote work was banned unless he personally said it was okay. It's important to note here that Twitter already allowed a remote work setup for its employees before Musk acquired the social media company, as per Bloomberg.
Many of his employees refused to adhere to the new policy, given that they can do their jobs just as well, if not better when they work remotely. It was then that the X owner said that if they could physically make it to an office and didn't show up, then "resignation accepted."
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NLRD Says X Retaliated Against Employee
Referring to the "resignation accepted" statement from the tech billionaire, software engineer Yao Yue said that employees should let Elon Musk fire them since they they will "gain literally nothing out of a resignation."
Five days after posting that on X, Yue was fired from the company. It's believed that losing her job was due to opposing the return-to-office mandate. The National Labor Relations Board says that it was in violation of federal law by "interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees."
Even before that, Tesla also caught the attention of the NLRB when the company fired an employee for trying to organize a union. According to The New York Times, Musk said that unionizing would affect the employees' stock options as well.
