11 Nov An end to Twitter’s “work from home forever”
Image created by me on Canva. Time to find the nearest exit…
Lord Elon. At it again.
Revisiting his edict from June:
“Subject: To be super clear
Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. Moreover, 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.
The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much – so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.
There are of course companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.
Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in.
Thanks,
Elon”
–https://electrek.co/2022/06/01/elon-musk-tesla-employees-come-back-office-or-quit/
And now he’s done the same at Twitter, which should be a shock to NO ONE:
“From: Elon Musk [email removed]
Date: Nov 9, 2022 [time stamp removed]
To: Team
Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company but there is no way to sugarcoat the message.
Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate. Moreover, 70% of our advertising is brand, rather than specific performance, which makes us doubly vulnerable!
That is why the priority over the past ten days has been to develop and launch Twitter Blue Verified subscriptions (huge props to the team!).
Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.
Of course, we will still then be significantly reliant on advertising, so I am spending time with our sales & partnerships teams to ensure that Twitter continues to be appealing to advertisers.
This is the Spaces discussion that Robin, Yoel and I hosted today: [Link to Elon Q&A: Advertising & the Future removed]
The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed. We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send the exception lists to me for review and approval.
Starting tomorrow (Thursday), everyone is required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a critical personal obligation, then your absence is understandable.
I look forward to working with you to take Twitter to a whole new level. The potential is truly incredible!
Thanks,
Elon”
–https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/read-elon-musks-first-email-to-all-twitter-employees.html
When you read the two messages together, the pattern and style are even easier to discern. Come on back to the office. It’s for everyone’s benefit for you to do so. If you don’t wanna, there’s the door.
So if you don’t work at Twitter or even anywhere in Big Tech for that matter, why is this significant? IMO, it’s paving the way for other companies to do the same. Will most of them do so by sending an email in the middle of the night and then demanding RTO the next day? Probably not. But it’s not a secret that they want you back.
But, but, my manager said there’s no plan to change our WFH policy.
My company would neverrrrrrr…
Don’t be so sure!
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