• During a Tesla financial presentation, Elon Musk went on a tirade attacking those who support working from home.
• The billionaire once again compared folks who work from home to the opulently wasteful Queen of France Marie Antoinette.
• “How detached does the work-from-home crowd have to be while they take advantage of all those who cannot work from home?” Musk ranted.

The world’s richest man, worth $253.2 billion, Elon Musk has questioned those who work from home and push to work from home on how detached they have to be to take advantage of those who can’t work from home.

During a webcast for Tesla’s Q3 2023 financial results presentation, the billionaire went on a tirade about working from home roughly 49 minutes into the broadcast. This barrage of opinions came amidst a conversation about Tesla’s pricing.

“Honestly it somewhat correlates with the ‘why doesn’t everyone work from home’ crowd. I mean this is like some real Marie Antoinette vibes from people that say ‘why doesn’t everyone work from home’. Like, what about all the people that have to come to the factory and fill their cars. What about all the people that have to go to the restaurant and make food and deliver your food. It’s like, what are you talking about you… I mean, how detached does the work-from-home crowd have to be while they take advantage of all those who cannot work from home? Why did I sleep in the factory so many times because it mattered,” the billionaire ranted.

It’s a bizarre statement to make and frankly, breaks down when you consider Musk flits between multiple companies himself and could be considered a hybrid worker. There’s also the matter that Musk heads up a company that makes and sells cars, something folks wouldn’t rely on as heavily if they worked from home.

And questioning how detached those who work from home have to be, that sure is rich coming from Musk of all people.

The mention of sleeping in the factory is also just, weird. Is he suggesting folks start living at the office instead of going home at all?

This is also the second time Musk has used Marie Antoinette to rail against those working from home in hopes of comparing them to the wastefully opulent Queen of France. In May the billionaire said that he believed people were more productive in person and the work-from-home crowd wouldn’t expect couriers, food delivery people, factory workers, and others to work from home.

It is rich that Musk who is, and we cannot reiterate this enough, a billionaire is trying to compare folks earning, by his own account, $50 000 to $70 000 a year to the Queen of France.

That was a rather silly example to make because all of those jobs require one to use specialised equipment or to travel, we’re sure that if a factory worker didn’t have to commute and could work from home, they would.

The popularity of remote work grew in 2020 on the back of a worldwide lockdown. Since then companies have steadily been calling workers back to the office although hybrid work models are still commonplace.

As we said though, Musk’s disdain for working from home is hypocritical and near-sighted, especially given he has a vested interest in the daily commute of office workers.