Elon Musk got into a Twitter spat with Australia’s third-richest man on Friday.
The Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) chief executive said “everyone at Tesla is to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week”. That drew criticism from worker advocates about potential exposure to the coronavirus.
The co-founder of Australian project management software maker Atlassian Plc (TEAM.O), 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.
Several computer companies in Silicon Valley moved to a mix of home and office working throughout the outbreak. Others have established dates for returning to work only to have them pushed back as fresh outbreaks develop. Musk, the world’s richest man and CEO of SpaceX, is no stranger to competing with other billionaires. In 2021, he posted an image of a second-place medal in response to a tweet by Jeff Bezos. He was celebrating the success of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O).
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 has since led a drive to buy AGL Energy Ltd (AGL), an Australian energy firm.AX) and speed up its transition to renewable power, reposted Farquhar’s remarks criticising Musk’s return-to-office order.
-Reuters.