Elon Musk kills Twitter's remote work policy in first email to employees

Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Elon Musk has a noted history of demanding his employees be in the office for work and he is bringing those same rules to his newly-acquired company Twitter.

Musk said that remote work will no longer be allowed starting Thursday in his first email to Twitter employees, reported by The Verge, Bloomberg and CBS News.

He evoked the "dire" economic situation the company faces due to its reliance on ad revenue. Employees will be required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week unless an employee has a "specific exception" which will be reviewed by Musk himself.

The email's subject line "difficult times ahead" painted a picture of what working for the company will look like under its new ownership.

"Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," Musk wrote to his employees. "Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire, especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate."

Musk reasoned that he placed an emphasis on the development and launch of the new Twitter Blue verification system as it was crucial to overcoming a loss in ad revenue. Twitter may not survive without the subscription service, he said, noting that it needs roughly half of its revenue to come from Twitter Blue.

In 2021, Twitter employed about 7,500 people. Last week, an internal memo circulated through the company warning employees of massive layoffs incoming. The number of layoffs to expect was not made immediately clear, but Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, tweeted that about 50% of the company, including 15% of his team, will be let go.

Following the news of massive layoffs, Twitter workers filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging it violated California employment laws by not giving advanced notice of the layoffs. The law, known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, requires a 60-day written notice if a company is to begin laying off employees. The lawsuit also alleged Musk violated the same law over the summer with another of his companies, Tesla.

Musk has been an opponent of remote work for some time. Earlier this year he sent memos to employees at Tesla and SpaceX, telling them they must be on-site for a minimum of 40 hours a week. When asked about workers in general not wanting to go back to in-person work, he tweeted, "They should pretend to work somewhere else."

Musk's purchase of Twitter for an estimated $44 billion became official two weeks ago.