Musk mandating Twitter workers return to office or resign. Will other companies follow?

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Saturday, November 12, 2022
Will other companies follow Twitter's return to office announcement?
Elon Musk's Twitter is mandating workers return to the office or resign. Will other companies follow?

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- More turmoil coming out of Twitter.

The latest development was captured on exclusive audio from an all-hands meeting.

It captured Elon Musk giving employees an ultimatum. Go back to the office or resign.

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"It's basically if you can, if you can show up at an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted -- end of story," said Musk.

In the exclusive audio recording obtained by ABC News. Musk pushes back when someone said:

"The offices are separate offices -- we won't be in person anyways."

Musk replied, "Yes," "But you can still maximize the amount of in-person activity."

RELATED: Meeting audio reveals Musk told Twitter staff either return to office or 'resignation accepted'

A stance that some employers may see as an example. A recent survey by GoodHire an employment background screening service, found that "78% of workers were worried that remote employees would be more at risk of losing their jobs during a recession than those in the office."

"For example if your employer is doing what many employees want meaning 71 percent of employees who can work from home would like to. Then no you won't get laid off. If however, your employer doing it grudgingly and is doing one of those 'oh sure you can work from home' but imply that you shouldn't then they may get laid off," said Lynn Bowes-Sperry, Ph.D., associate professor at the Department of Management at Cal State East Bay.

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Just as top executives at Twitter have announced their resignations, Elon Musk informs employees that they must return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week.

Professor Lynn Bowes-Sperry believes that if more companies decide to require a full-time return to the office they could lose talent in the long run.

"If you think you are going to lose your source of income then, yeah, you are going to go back, but I do think if you are not ready to go back or if you are not interested to go back because you can be productive from home why wouldn't you be looking for another job," said Bowes-Sperry.

Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom believes Musk is using the working-from-home excuse to save money.

RELATED: Twitter workers' return could make big difference for downtown SF businesses, expert says

"Musk is banning work from home probably to thin out Twitter and get a lot of people to voluntarily quit. He doesn't have to fire as many people. Another view is that it's a short-run thing that if you are going to go through a massive change. So Twitter is changing direction pretty radically," said professor Nicholas Bloom.

According to Musk, Twitter is losing over $4 million a day. During that same recording, Musk also said that plenty of people at Tesla and SpaceX do work remotely, but it's "on an exception basis... for exceptional people."

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