Australia’s billionaire slams Elon Musk’s ultimatum to Tesla employees

• Elon Musk got into a Twitter feud with Australia’s third-richest man on Friday.
• Musk has a history of going up against other billionaires.
• Farquhar’s Atlassian co-founder, publicly accepted and facilitated Musk’s offer to donate a large Tesla battery installation.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, got into a Twitter feud with Australia’s billionaire man on Friday. The quarrel took place over the importance of ending the pandemic-era practice of remote working.

“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office every week,” said Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk in an internal email this week. He added that “if you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.” Worker activists slammed the move, citing the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

Read more: Elon Musk gives an ultimatum to Tesla employees, ‘Come to office or get out’

Scott Farquhar, the co-founder of Atlassian Plc, an Australian billionaire, and a project management software company, mocked the policy in a series of tweets. He called it “something out of the 1950s.” The “work from anywhere” approach of the publicly traded company was “critical for our continued success,” he said.

“We’re setting our sights on growing Atlassian to 25K employees by FY26,” Farquhar concluded. “Any Tesla employees interested?”

Musk shot back, “The above set of tweets illustrate why recessions serve a vital economic cleansing function.”

Musk, who routinely uses Twitter to make unapologetic statements about difficult topics, is no stranger to such exchanges.

Read more: Elon Musk leaked email reveals how terrible he is as an employer

During the epidemic, several computer firms in Silicon Valley switched to a mix of home and office work. While, others established dates for returning to the office only to push them back when new illnesses arose.

Musk, the world’s richest man and CEO of SpaceX, has a history of going up against other billionaires. In response to a tweet by Jeff Bezos congratulating Amazon.com Inc’s success in 2021, he uploaded an image of a second-place medal.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, Farquhar’s Atlassian co-founder, publicly accepted and facilitated Musk’s offer to donate a large Tesla battery installation. The deal was accepted for the state of South Australia after it had a blackout in 2017.

Farquhar’s statements criticizing Musk’s return-to-office order were shared by Cannon-Brookes. Moreover, he leads a push to buy Australian energy giant AGL Energy Ltd and accelerate its transition to renewable energy.

Read more: Elon Musk has a “very terrible feeling” about the economy