Elon Musk says people working from home are living in “la-la land” and are insulting people who show up to the office.
In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s David Faber, the former world’s richest person lashed out at the work-from-home culture that became the norm during the Covid-19 pandemic and said it was morally dubious.
“I’m a big believer that people are more productive when they’re [working in the office] in person,” Mr Musk said.
“The whole work from home thing… there are some exceptions… it’s a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ‘let them eat cake’. It’s like really? You’re going to work from home and you’re going to make everyone else who made your car, come work in the factory?” he continued.
“You’re going to make everyone else, who makes your food, that gets delivered, they can’t work from home? The people who come fix your house, they can’t work from home? But you can? Does that seem morally right? That’s messed up.”
“Do you see it as a moral issue,” Faber asked.
“Yes,” Mr Musk responded. “It’s a productivity issue, but it’s also a moral issue. People should get off their god damn moral high horse with that work from home bulls**t. Because they’re asking everyone else to not work from home while they do.”
Faber interjected, “And yet there’s still push-back by the way, it’s still going on. This battle is still happening. I mean, leaders of organisations, and I speak to plenty of them, want people back [in the office]. Three days a week they’re still battling. It’s not clear that it’s ever going to change to… people are not going back to five days a week.”
Mr Musk said the “laptop class” was living in “la-la land”.
He said it was “messed up” that people involved in the production of goods had to go to work while others were able to work from home. “It’s not just a productivity thing, I think it’s morally wrong,” he stated.
Mr Musk said he worked seven days a week, but was not expecting others to do that, adding that he said people could work flexible work days and should take holiday leave.
He also admitted to getting just six hours of sleep each night. He said he had tried sleeping less but that had reduced his productivity.
“The brain-pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep],” he said.
Mr Musk also revealed that he only spends about two or three days of every year not doing some type of meaningful work.
According to recent research, the pandemic “acted as a catalyst for changing the expectations people have about working”.
In practice, many businesses in Australia have settled on a flexible approach, balancing working arrangements so that people can work from home and also allow for “sufficient face-to-face time at the workplace”.
The Taking the Pulse of the Nation study, a 2020 publication by the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne Institute, found that 70 per cent of Australians who have been working from home because of the Covid-19 pandemic wanted to keep doing so.
About 41 per cent of people employed in Australia regularly worked from home, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in August 2021 — a large increase compared to previous years.
Business leaders in Australia have recently called for more workers to return to the office, citing a need to get the CBDs of major cities “humming” again.
Executive director of Business Sydney, Paul Nicolau, recently penned an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald titled: “Sydney, it’s time to get back to the office.”
His call was criticised on social media, with one person responding, “No … working from home is the future, Boomers.”