Musk Reportedly Bans Remote Work At Twitter And Warns Of 'Difficult Times' In Inte

[barbtries]

Source: Forbes

According to Bloomberg, Musk’s first email sent to staffers late on Wednesday night warned of “difficult times ahead” for the company, adding that there was no way to “sugarcoat the message.”

Musk also ended Twitter’s lenient remote work policy that has been in place since the start of the pandemic and allowed employees to work from anywhere, corroborating earlier reports.

In his email, Twitter’s new CEO reportedly said the policy change will go into effect immediately and employees are expected to be in the office “at least 40 hours per week.”

Any exemptions to the remote work policy change will have to be personally approved by Musk himself, the report added.

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/10/musk-reportedly-bans-remote-work-at-twitter-and-warns-of-difficult-times-in-internal-email/?sh=38fe1786031c

---

He's going to lose good people over this. Asshole. It's a tech company, unless you have to go right into the machinery you do not have to be chained to a desk and commute back and forth and all that crap.

He's truly a terrible person, isn't he?

[Thomas Hurt]

1. I guess one way to help Trump's social media site is to destroy one you own....

[barbtries]

3. right?

but i somehow don't believe that is musk's intention; he may want to supercede trump, he doesn't worship the man. only himself apparently.

[Thomas Hurt]

10. Well yes, I was being flippant. I don't know that the Pig's site is savable honestly.

It seems it was only meant to be a temporary grift to take money from the cultists anyway.

The Pig will take what money he can and leave the Nunes and his cow holding the bag.

[NullTuples]

92. Still, Twitter was a significant tool for anti-fascism, anti-Republican communication & activism

And performed a similar function in other countries.

That's gotta be worth more than $44 billion to people like the royal family of Saudi Arabia & the largest bank-invested capitalists. It'll take more than a decade for anything to grow to replace it, if that's even possible. Right now all the alternatives are insular & siloed by server, interest, demographics, etc...

[Wicked Blue]

2. "At least 40 hours a week"

This means they had better put in a 60 hour week, without extra pay, if they want to keep their jobs.

I hope he loses every penny he has and ends up broke.

[barbtries]

9. Right after the change to Musk,

i read somewhere (sorry cannot recall source, I think it may have been DU) that hours were going up to 84 hours a week. As i commented at the time, my son's best friend worked for Musk straight out of college and his mother told me he was working 100 hours per week. He didn't stay there all that long.

[PatSeg]

48. At the rate he's going,

that is a very real possibility. It is like he is determined to destroy the company. I wonder if he's having some mid-life crisis. He was always odd, but now he seems to be out-of-control.

[barbtries]

82. my theory is

idiosyncrasy is morphing into megalomania. he keeps on basically issuing edicts without regard to anyone else's situation; he appears not to appreciate in any way at all that he needs these people to stay in business. i don't know. he's just a huge asshole.

[PatSeg]

85. Yes, that makes sense

I think all that wealth and fame has really messed with an already unstable personality and he really thinks he is king of the world and can do anything he wants.

There was that other article today that said, "Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC." He risks incurring billions of dollars in fines. He has that same megalomania that Trump has - he can do anything he wants and no one can stop him.........well, until they do and that ain't going to be pretty.

[James48]

4. U-N-I-O-N

The quick way to stop that crap is to organize and file to become a Union.

Legally they can’t change work rules after the time a union petition is filed, and when the vote is held.

Can you get 30% of twitter employees to sign an organizing petition?

[barbtries]

13. I don't even know one.

I don't even know where the company is located physically.

[Angleae]

88. Twitter HQ is in San Francisco.

They however do have other offices scattered around the country as well as several countries.

[barbtries]

89. thank you.

i hope he gets 5,000 requests to work remotely so he won't have much else to do for a few days.

[multigraincracker]

18. John Galt and friends will move to that Libertarian heaven Somalia.

Wild Cat Strike Now.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

50. Who is John Galt?

Ayn Rand knows.

[multigraincracker]

58. Interesting book,

I traveled a little with the author.

[Warpy]

90. Who cares?

That's my takeaway from Rand.

[Warpy]

73. He's bought dual citizenship in NZ

but I think he discovered that people in NZ aren't afraid to tell him to go to hell. He thought "seasteading" would help him escape all these POC and women and thus be a paradise on earth, but found he needed a land based country to get things like mail deliveries. He chose French Polynesia, but his demands were great and they eventually told him to go to hell. Now he's got his sights set on Malta, but I doubt his luck will improve there, not only is it one of the most densely populated land masses on the planet, it's also the possession of the UK and I'm absolutely certain they're going to tell him to go to hell.

I was really hoping his seasteading experiment would work, that all the libertarian tech plutocrats would join him there, and that they'd face a truly fortuitous typhoon.

No such luck.

[barbtries]

83. this is all true?

i'm gullible but i believe you, i just didn't know all this about him. SpaceX and Tesla, that's what I knew.

[Warpy]

86. I'm amazed people don't know about this lunatic

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/new-zealand-gave-peter-thiel-citizenship-after-spending-just-12-days-there

https://theoutline.com/post/3745/seasteading-institute-french-polynesia-peter-thiel

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/billionaire-peter-thiel-reportedly-pursuing-maltese-citizenship.987866

....or that I don't pull stuff like this out of my ass.

[barbtries]

87. based on the links,

that's not elon musk, it's peter thiel. I did know he was a crackpot though I haven't spent a lot of time learning about it. IIRC he wants to find another planet to move to.

but yeah, that's not musk.

[AllTooEasy]

94. or F-I-N-D A B-E-T-T-E-R P-A-Y-I-N-G J-O-B in Biden's job market

Twitter employees are highly skilled. Other tech companies would/will fight over them. The Biden job market is very employee friendly. That's a bad combination for Musk. I hope that they all resign and leave Musk in labor bankruptcy.

If Twitter was filled with low-skilled workers, I would agree with you. Twitter manufactures nothing. Twitter employees could/will use their computer/networking/cybersecurity skills and company name to easily find higher paying, remote-work job within days.

Give me their resumes, my gov't contractor employer will scoop them up.

[Pinback]

5. A new take on Disaster Capitalism.

Take over a company that’s doing well and immediately run it into the ground.

Incompetence or sabotage? Hard to tell the difference sometimes. The end result is often the same.

[Gore1FL]

35. It was losing money, so "doing well" is an overstatement.

He sure made a bad situation irreversibly worse, though.

[Pinback]

41. Ok.

I stand corrected. I don’t keep up with corporate financials. I forgot that in this era, almost 400 million users (if that’s still accurate) doesn’t necessarily equal “success.”

[Gore1FL]

42. I only found out it was losing when he bought it recently

And only as a result of his purchase. But as you pointed out, he has only had a negative effect on it!

[dixiegrrrrl]

75. tax deduction possibility...losses would be high. n/t

[Pinback]

91. Yep, throwing money away

to keep the government from “stealing” it. Makes sense having observed this creep’s self-centered approach to life.

[vlyons]

6. He doesn't trust that remote workers honestly report their work hours.

Big brother has to keep an eye on them. Meanwhile, he has to pay for the buildings and infrastructure required to have them all in the office. I'll bet he deploys a computer time check-in check-out ap for all employees -- even VPs.

[barbtries]

15. i wouldn't be surprised at all

even if he had keyboard recorders checking on every click. He seems to be a true nightmare of a boss.

[getagrip_already]

25. It's more likely a control and domineer type of need for him....

If he can't see the people that work for him squirm, then he won't be fulfilled.

He will take great joy in personally destroying workers for the shear enjoyment of it, just to feel the power.

Plus, he will be able to harass woman in person. He can't do that remotely. He will in person.

So I doubt this has anything to do with trust or efficiency. It is all wrapped up in dysfunction as a person.

[NullTuples]

37. He truly is a younger version of Trump

[Texin]

62. Bingo!

[Dopers_Greed]

7. The "difficult times" are his own doing

What an asshole.

He literally wasted billions just to blow up the company and fuck over the employees.

[forgotmylogin]

29. Trying to fix what wasn't broken...so right-wing.

Twitter was *the* prominent social media platform that everybody was using and reposting links from. It was easy, free, safe and mostly ubiquitous.

I mean...half of the content here was linked from Twitter.

The unmitigated gall. He's the new boss that arrives on the scene in a smoothly-running office and decides that isn't good enough now that he's in charge.

[RockRaven]

8. He is never, ever, EVER going to get as much money from subscriptions as he has lost from ads.

People don't like paying to use shit on the internet. They just don't. Especially things that make them angry or frustrated or feel harrassed.

And the loss of ad revenue is probably irreversible because it, in part, is rooted in his persona and personal behavior. Twitter is fiscally doomed with him as owner, no matter what features those in-the-office-now employees roll out next.

[vlyons]

36. How long before Mitt Romney runs in to buy it as a distressed company,

and sell off all the assets? Maybe it has to go into bankruptcy reorganization first.

[Marthe48]

47. or j.d. vance

aka john d. bowman, also a 'venture capitalist'

[Bev54]

65. The assets are the people signed up on twitter who gets $ from advertisers to sell

products to members and he likely is selling personal information to other countries and whoever else wants their lists.

[ZonkerHarris]

11. Don;'t give a shit what a rich guy does with his website.

[NullTuples]

39. Perhaps you should: It was one of the largest platforms for anti-fascism, anti-conservative efforts

We're not a monolith like Republicans. We're a massive, diverse set of groups that form coalitions when needed. And Twitter was by far the largest platform used by groups such as Democrats in the USA to find each other, communicate news and organize. I cannot shake that buying & burning down Twitter was a strategic move.

[TomDaisy]

12. the job market is so tight in the Bay Area for tech workers

these people are gone. they probably each have 20 headhunters calling them every day.

[Random Boomer]

32. Remote work is a deal-breaker

The best tech workers can easily get a job with better working conditions. And for many, it's even worth a pay cut to get a w@h job.

[SunSeeker]

72. Yup. The best will not work at Twitter. nt

[AkFemDem]

51. The tech job sector is experiencing a massive

Crash right now. It’s not just Twitter.

[sarcasmo]

14. Musk will have his Twitter operation in China by the end of 2023.

[barbtries]

16. maybe that's his goal.

where he won't even have to treat employees as fully human; their workstations will be their homes.

[sarcasmo]

46. Elon loves workers who can't leave.

[Pas-de-Calais]

17. What anyone expect from person not working 1 day in their life

[Ford_Prefect]

19. He's effing clueless about it. He's like the guy who made all his money in the nasty part of

Wall Street and then bought a Ferrari to celebrate without any idea just how often they need to be serviced, and how much time, money, and actual expertise it takes to do it.*

*(I used to know this guy. Not Elon).

[barbtries]

21. i can totally imagine

some cash happy kid, or kid-like man, saying "i'm getting a Ferrari!" and then getting a sort of rude awakening lol. I hope he never wrecked it is all, because my understanding is that those cars can go quite fast.

[geardaddy]

67. Or how to drive a stick shift.

[Ford_Prefect]

68. The ultimate theft deterrent...

[geardaddy]

69. Yes!

[barbtries]

84. yeah.

i only buy cars with manual transmissions. I waited quite awhile to find my 2020 Impreza and the manager at the dealership told me there was a cartoon or something out there. 2 guys walking away from a car and one says, "you forgot to lock your car," and the other says, "it's a stick." End of cartoon.

they acquired it to be a valet car and none of their valets could drive a manual! lol I love my car.

[3825-87867]

20. Getting excuses ready to move HQ to...

Saudi Arabia?

or...?

[womanofthehills]

80. Saudi Arabian Prince Ahwaleed has been with Twitter for 10 yrs

A major stockholder who rolled his Twitter stock worth over to Elon’s Twitter. I’m sure MBS monitors Twitter in Saudi’s Arabia.

[getagrip_already]

22. queue the exit of parents, part timers, and others who don't/can't work a traditional schedule.....

Other companies will snap them up no doubt, but twitter is losing yet more talent.

[barbtries]

23. absolutely.

read an article yesterday that said the brain drain is already starting to affect performance of the app. Musk will almost certainly destroy twitter.

[Coventina]

24. A tech company refusing remote work?

Next he's going to require them to arrive by horse & buggy.

[barbtries]

26. no shit.

the short-sightedness of this policy change is jarring.

[getagrip_already]

28. or by tesla....

He will probably make it sme kind of test of loyalty. No tesla, no promotions or raises.

[Corgigal]

27. Can we vote Musk out of America too?

Take up to much time, and too needy. Tired of this clown. Send him up in one of his rockets. So happy when I was shopping I didn’t get a Tesla because I’m sure he’s hurting the re-sell, but he’s god gift.

Will be happy to donate to any foreign country that wants to put up with another man/child the sum of 5 dollars.

[Cheezoholic]

30. Who cares

Twittockfacemedia has only monetary value and 0 social value. They cause more problems than they're worth. They can all go the way of the Edsel.

[yonder]

52. I don't necessarily agree with zero social value - many people depend on it to stay in touch.

I'm with you on your overall sentiment though, hell yes.

That’s also a great term for the mashup: Twitockfacemedia

[Hekate]

31. Kick

[tanyev]

33. Exemptions have to be personally approved by Musk?

That’s a ludicrous level of micromanagement. I can’t believe he’s doing that with Tesla or Space X.

[Hekate]

40. I can just imagine his canned response: "Bwahahahahahaha, little human"

[FredGarvin]

34. Musk is a sadist

He knows full well that his roll-out of Twitter's AI based corporation is going to replace 90% of the workforce anyway.

A great opportunity to showcase his newest cost cutting breakthrough.

[Hekate]

38. He likes his Chinese workers, who do sleepovers...

He really, truly doesn’t like American workers or American labor law.

Musk has been vocal about his distaste for remote work several times this year. In June, the Tesla CEO scrapped remote work at the electric car company and ordered its executive staff to work a minimum “40 hours a week” a week from office or leave. When asked on Twitter about people wanting to work remotely, Musk responded, “they should pretend to work somewhere else.” In his email to Tesla workers Musk reportedly added: “The office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.” Speaking at an event in May, Musk criticized American workers, stating: “People are trying to avoid going to work at all.” The billionaire’s dig at U.S. workers came after he praised Tesla’s factory workers in China, who he said were willing to work as late as 3 a.m. or not even leave the factory if needed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/10/musk-reportedly-bans-remote-work-at-twitter-and-warns-of-difficult-times-in-internal-email/?sh=4ae440156031

[getagrip_already]

45. well that isn't hard to do....

Years ago I worked for EMC. They had a core of young and very talented coders who wrote the microcode for the symetrix storage systems. Many were israeli, but many were just hotshots out of college who knew how to get things done.

Moshe (the vp of engineering at the time) was able to get them to give 300%. They would often sleep in their office as deadlines approached. He had a specially equipped van so they could code while commuting (and this was in the 90's - so you know it was $$$$).

So how did he do it? Draconian discipline? Visa rattling? Yelling, screaming, throwing tantrums?

Nope to all of that (although there was the occasional emotional display at status meetings).

He held out performance bonuses. Very lucrative ones with some engineers getting $1M bonuses for completing objectives on time.

They loved Moshe. They didn't miss many deadlines. He treated engineering very, very, well (we had our ow policies and benefits apart from the rest of the company).

[Hekate]

55. I remember those days. In a family of techies, I'm a liberal arts major, & we were all young ....

… back in the 1970s and ‘80s. It was exciting as hell for the techies, and well-paid, too. It was a young man’s game, and I mean that gendered comment.

Women can keep up just fine until they have a kid — as my younger sister the engineer discovered. She really, really loved her work, but at some point in the 24 hours a child or two needs a parent.

After my divorce, with 2 little ones in tow, my own job choices were driven by two things: benefits, especially medical, and a stable 40 hour workweek. No glory there, and a laughable salary.

Anyhow, moving up to the present and Elon Musk — the more I read about him, the more I realize he’d be just fine with actual slavery, minus the part where slaves need to be fed. Given labor conditions in China, that might be an apt comparison.

[littlemissmartypants]

70. And child slavery at that. He'd love to see the end of child labor laws. nt

[Hekate]

77. Think of children sleeping under the bobbin spinners in cotton mills...

What an untapped resource.

[Initech]

43. Coincidentally, Twitter wasn't facing difficult times until Elon took over.

[EX500rider]

78. Except for the whole losing money thing

2021 operating loss of $493 million

2020 net loss of $1.14 billion

[Initech]

81. And Elon's advisors didn't think to tell him this might have been a terrible investment?

[twodogsbarking]

44. Straight from the playbook of people who cannot run their own businesses.

Less lunch time and fewer bathroom breaks is next.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

49. He's a trustafarian just like Trump

His ham handedness is no surprise.

[keopeli]

53. If you work for Twitter and haven't quit yet, you're a masochist. Plenty of better jobs out there

[yardwork]

54. Within a few months he will have lost most of his current workforce.

They are seeking new jobs right now.

[hamsterjill]

56. I think that's his underlying intent.

He’s trying to get more people to leave on their own rather than have more layoffs.

The man is an asshole.

[yardwork]

74. This would be an effective way to do it.

[MrsCoffee]

95. Exactly.

He got in trouble for wanting to lay them all off, so he is going to make it miserable for them so they leave on their own.

[Joinfortmill]

57. R.I.P. Twitter.

[Texin]

59. Bosses like Musk are narcissists that require a captive audience at all times.

[Javaman]

60. ironic really. here musk needs to save buckets of money on his money pit investment yet...

wants to keep a brick and mortar.

want to save money? have everyone work from home and close the office.

he really is a very special kind of control freak stupid.

[CountAllVotes]

61. Next !!!

[Pepsidog]

63. I once admired the guy for his tenacity and drive. Now he is just another Trumper prick.

[rubbersole]

64. Musk is trying to redefine "asshole".

At least he's trying to get to the top of Asshole Mountain.

[geardaddy]

66. Difficult times that he is creating

What a egotistical numbskull.

This one is completely out of order:
"Any exemptions to the remote work policy change will have to be personally approved by Musk himself, the report added."

I expect lawsuits from people who have legitimate medical reasons for working from home to hit the company because of this idiots actions.

[SunSeeker]

71. He's acting like an insecure asshole who never ran a company. nt

[The Wizard]

76. Did he get his degree

from Trump University? The employees will sabotage Twitter.

[NullTuples]

93. His college years read like his professional history.

"He started at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, on a scholarship. Musk said in a December 2019 Tweet that he paid his own way through college, making rent money by hosting parties with friends.

At Penn, Musk pursued a double major in physics and in economics. While he appreciated his business education, Musk says he preferred physics, and he opted to intern in Silicon Valley over his two summers at Penn.

Musk embarked on a Ph.D. program in physics at Stanford University, but left after two days. The entrepreneur "couldn't stand to just watch the internet go by," he said in a 2013 interview with Khan Academy."

from: https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/analysis/2021/10/19/did-elon-musk-go-to-college/

[Woodwizard]

79. Elon's tutorial on how to lose 43 billion dollars.

I remember after being in a great position in a company and getting a really bad micromanaging VP, I hit my snapping point and quit. No idea what I was going to do next so I went into my own small business that was 18 years ago. And I am still in my business

The company I had worked for for 14 years went out of business 4 years after I had left, it was the management, we made a great product.