This, he explained, was because there are many workers, such as those in the manufacturing and retail industries, who are unable to work from home due to the nature of their jobs, so it’s not right that office workers have the freedom to do so. Never one to mince his words, Musk went onto declare that ‘people should get off their goddamn high horse with their work-from-home bullsh*t’.

There is much to admire about Musk. A playboy tycoon and entrepreneurial genius, his success has reached virtually indescribable heights, with an estimated net worth of around $193 billion. Much of his work, especially through Tesla and SpaceX, has genuinely fascinating implications for the future of humanity, while Twitter stands as arguably the most influential and important media platform in the world. But when it comes to Musk’s views on remote working, he’s just plain wrong.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit the West back in 2020, thousands of bosses who share Musk’s opinion were completely hysterical at the thought of their workers doing their jobs from home. ‘This is a total outrage! How can my staff possibly be trusted to carry out their work from outside the office?! This will be a disaster!!!’ is probably a rough approximation of what went through many employers’ minds at the time. Imagine their surprise then that remote working during the crisis didn’t lead to any widespread dip in productivity, as they had feared it would. On the contrary, a recent survey conducted by RingCentral found that more than half of workers feel that they are more productive when working from home, as opposed to in a busy office where it can be difficult to concentrate – at times, nigh on impossible! While many businesses regrettably closed down during the pandemic – largely due to the downturn in public and corporate spending – many more that might otherwise have gone under were kept afloat by the hard work and commitment of their (often depleted) workforces.

Considering how successful remote working has been – not only from an employee wellbeing perspective, but also in terms of productivity and profitability – it is something of a betrayal to hear someone as high profile as Musk brand the practice as ‘morally wrong’. Yes, it is true that some workers can’t do their jobs remotely, but is that really sound justification for making people feel guilty for working from home, or depriving them from doing so? Not only do these comments come across as ignorant to all the benefits that remote working has brought to employees and employers alike, but they also have the distinctive musk – if you’ll pardon the pun – of hypocrisy. Despite having demanded all Twitter employees return to the office when he took over in October 2022, it was reported in January 2023 that Musk had instructed workers in the company’s Seattle and Singapore offices to work remotely. Had he, after claiming that remote workers were only ‘pretending to work’, had a sudden change of heart, realising that his employees were likely to be more productive if they were happier with their working arrangements? No, he had apparently realised that he could cut the various costs associated with his Seattle office – including rent, cleaning, and security – by closing the place down. In light of this, it is difficult to see his most recent comments about remote working as anything but disingenuous and driven chiefly by greed, rather than by any principled disdain for the practice itself.

This speaks to the wider divisions between bosses and their employees when it comes to remote working. While many employers seemingly believe, like Musk, that workers are only ‘pretending’ to work from home, they don’t really have a leg to stand on if there’s no real evidence to suggest this is the case. If workers appear to be happier and more productive while working from home, shouldn’t business leaders consider what they might stand to gain from letting them do so, instead of taking the anachronistic view that ‘work can only be done from the office’? Surely no employer with an ounce of sense still believes this and, if they do, it’s difficult not to question whether they might have an ulterior motive up their sleeve!