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Australian tech billionaire takes on Elon Musk's 'return to office' directive

Published 06/03/2022, 12:33 AM
Updated 06/03/2022, 07:47 AM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk looks at his mobile phone in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Elon Musk got into a Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) spat with Australia's third-richest man on Friday over the value of putting an end to the pandemic-era habit of remote working.

In an internal email this week, the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc chief executive said "everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week", and "if you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned". That drew criticism from worker advocates about potential exposure to the coronavirus.

The co-founder of Australian project management software maker Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM) Plc, Scott Farquhar, ridiculed the directive in a series of tweets as being "like something out of the 1950s". The U.S.-listed company's "work from anywhere" policy was "key for our continued growth", he said.

"We're setting our sights on growing Atlassian to 25K employees by FY26," Farquhar concluded. "Any Tesla employees interested?"

Musk shot back: "The above set of tweets illustrate why recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function".

The exchange is not unusual for Musk, who frequently uses Twitter to make unapologetic pronouncements about sensitive subjects.

In Silicon Valley, many tech firms moved to mixed home and office working during the pandemic, while others have set dates for returning to the office only to push them back as new outbreaks have occurred.

Musk, the world's wealthiest man and also CEO of SpaceX, also has a record of taking on other billionaires. In 2021, he posted an image of a second-place medal in response to a tweet by Jeff Bezos celebrating the success of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN).

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In 2017, Farquhar's Atlassian co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, cooperated with Musk, publicly taking up and facilitating his offer to supply a powerful Tesla battery installation for the state of South Australia after it suffered a blackout in 2017.

Cannon-Brookes, who has since led a campaign to buy Australian energy company AGL Energy (OTC:AGLXY) Ltd and speed up its transition to renewable power, reposted Farquhar's remarks criticising Musk's return-to-office order.

(This story corrects to change to 'U.S.-listed' from 'London-listed' in paragraph 3)

Latest comments

you are right. we should all resign, and only have occasional wee paid gigs and untaxed. Get private insurance, pension etc. Life on a pay as you go basis, give up on long term plans and possession amassment
*well paid
There is no work in nature, and no man is made for work. Work is the shackles of slavery that no man deserves. Is it time for everyone to think about who you are, the master or the slave? One and the other is evil. If you are an employer, hire not a person, but his business services. If you are an employee, create your own business and provide services. Humanity will flourish when every family takes care of what it can do for other families, creating innovations and incentives for the autonomy of other families.
In today's world, labour prevails, which is the third quality of slavery. Employers pile up their wealth at the expense of employees' work, dropping the crumbs of wages to the latter. The path of human freedom stretches through these three levels of slavery. Since freedom is the natural right of every human being, sooner or later the hired work will be abolished. The technological revolution, robotics and virtualization will allow people to return to their natural organization - the family and their own family business.
The abolition of labour slavery is coming! There is no slavery in the animal world. Slavery is an invention of man. The oldest form of slavery is the objectification of another person, which gives his owner the right to dispose of another person as a thing. The second form of slavery is tantamount to serfdom, in which one family governs another family. The third slavery is a hired job in which one family uses a member of the other family as a means to build their own well-being.
An employment is 3rd slavery. Start your own business and become free from slavery. Everyone can do it.
.. And also that new business will have employees too. So if everyone wants to start their own business there won't be any employees left. Meaning, the idea of a business unit with employers /employees should be given up. What comes next then? Maybe, I say maybe, UBI and working for the whole if one feels capable? I mean, really, to feel connected to one another and to serve the world in some way, is what makes us happy. If we just get a chance as a whole to find out that truth we can break this circle of greed which requires slavery.
So, in your world, if I start my own business, that makes me a slave owner.
Not entirely true.  I started my own professional services company with minimal financial investment but a whole lot of hours invested.
Musk is right and the coronavirus is a hoax, a scam, a lie, a fraud
Tell that to my neighbor's widow.
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