Reports have Elon Musk telling Twitter staff that remote work will end and “tough times” lie ahead. In an email to staff, the owner of the social media company said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week, Bloomberg reported.
Mr Musk added that there was “no way to water down the message” that the slowing global economy would affect Twitter’s ad revenue.
The San Francisco-based company told its staff in May 2020 that they could work from home “forever” if they wanted, as the company believed its remote working measures during the Covid shutdowns had been a success.
But Mr Musk has publicly said he has a low opinion of remote work, writing on the site he now owns earlier this year that “all the Covid stuff at home has got people thinking you don’t need to work hard. Rough awakening coming!”
In June, Tesla boss Mr Musk told staff at the electric car maker that working remotely was no longer acceptable.
Like at Tesla, the contractor said he would only grant exemptions to Twitter employees who want to work remotely.
The world’s richest man has already announced that half of Twitter’s staff have been made redundant, a week after he bought the company in a $44billion (£38.7billion) deal.
Mr Musk said he had “no choice” over the cuts as the company lost $4m (£3.51m) daily. He blamed ‘militant groups pressuring advertisers’ for a ‘massive drop in revenue’
The cuts – along with Mr. Musk’s fierce advocacy for free speech – have led to speculation that Twitter may be watering down its content moderation efforts.
However, Mr Musk insisted that the platform’s approach to harmful content remains “absolutely unchanged”.
On Thursday, a host of senior Twitter executives resigned. Chief information security officer Lea Kissner said they had made the “difficult decision” to leave the company.
Meanwhile, tech news site The Verge reported that Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty resigned.
As part of his revamp of the social media platform, Mr Musk is rolling out plans to allow users to purchase blue-tick verified status for $8 a month.
In his email to staff, Mr Musk said he wanted subscriptions to make up half of all Twitter revenue.
But the policy change is controversial amid fears the platform could be inundated with fake accounts.
Until now, the verification badge was only awarded to notable or high-level accounts that Twitter had analyzed and found genuine.