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Musk clarifies Twitter staff can work from home following criticism from Irish staff
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Musk clarifies Twitter staff can work from home following criticism from Irish staff

ELON MUSK has clarified that Twitter staff in Ireland and worldwide who cannot logistically work in an office will not have to if a manager "vouches for excellence".

The clarification comes after Musk last week announced that all staff worldwide are required to work in the office at least 40 hours a week.

One Irish individual posted to Twitter to criticise the policy, highlighting the difficulty of moving to Dublin at such short notice for staff who live outside the capital in the current housing climate.

"This is in the middle of a housing crisis that Musk has absolutely no idea out, and it is almost impossible to move to Dublin so quickly," the post reads.

"This is putting us under an intense amount of stress and uncertainty and unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it."

Mr Musk replied:

"This is false. Anyone who can be in office, should be. However, if not logistically possible or they have essential personal matters, then staying home is fine.

"Working remotely is also ok if their manager vouches for excellence. Same policy as Tesla & SpaceX."

Employment law solicitor Anne O'Connell said many companies want employees back in the office, but Mr Musk's lack of communication is causing upset.

Ms O'Connell told Newstalk:

"Most companies would have already introduced returning to work policy after Covid, and I know some companies are having difficulties in getting employees back to work.

"In every single contract of employment it does state where the location of work is, it will be in the offices."

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar also last week criticised Musk over his handling of layoffs in Ireland.

Speaking on The Indo Daily podcast, Mr Varadkar said Twitter had not broken any laws in how it announced redundancies but said he was not impressed by how Elon Musk handled the issue.

“They went about it in an unconventional way by email, but they didn’t actually break any laws – because none of those redundancies have actually been affected,” he said.

“The law is that you have to give people 30 days’ notice before the redundancy has taken effect, so they haven’t actually breached any rules. But they went about it in not in the best way, quite frankly.