Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, announced in March that it was reopening its offices but that its work-from-home policy remained unchanged.

Loading

“Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work and that includes working from home full-time forever,” Agrawal said.

The move is contrary to a diktat that billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who has a contract to buy Twitter, issued to staff at his primary company Tesla earlier this year demanding they work at the office.

“Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla,” he said in a leaked internal email at the end of May.

Twitter’s spokesman did not address how a potential decision to operate in Australia without a physical office would square with Musk’s disdain for working from home, from which he has excluded high performing staff.

Musk is locked in a court dispute over his attempt to back out of purchasing Twitter for $US44 billion, which the company wants to push through.

Twitter confirmed it was sharply scaling back hiring in May and laid off about 100 people in its recruiting teams earlier this month. Technology companies have been pummelled by public markets this year, with Twitter’s shares down about 44 per cent since this time in 2021.

Technology companies have been some of the most enthusiastic adopters of working from home since the pandemic. Australia’s largest home-grown technology firm, Atlassian, allows staff to work from anywhere in the country.

With Carolyn Cummins