Elon Emails

Coronavirus: 'panic far exceeds' harm of the virus

From:
Elon Musk
Date:
March 16, 2020 (Reported March 17, 2020; sent the previous evening)
To:
All Tesla employees

Partial text. Only these passages were published; [...] marks a gap.

First, I'd like to be super clear that if you feel the slightest bit ill or even uncomfortable, please don't feel obligated to come to work. I will personally be at work, but that is just me. Totally OK if you want to stay home for any reason. A lot of rumors are flying around, but, to the best of our knowledge, no one at Tesla (over 56,000 people) has tested positive for COVID-19. I will inform you immediately if anything changes. My frank opinion remains that the harm from the coronavirus panic far exceeds that of the virus itself. If there is a massive redirection of medical resources out of proportion to the danger, it will result in less available care to those with critical medical needs, which does not serve the greater good. What the COVID-19 coverage does show is that the danger of colds and flu in general can be high for the elderly, especially if there is prior lung damage. Much is made of public gatherings, but please be cautious of family gatherings, too. What is relatively harmless to a child can be dangerous to grandparents. My best guess, for what it is worth, based on the latest Center for Disease Control data, is that confirmed COVID-19 (this specific form of the common cold) cases will not exceed 0.1% of the US population. Moreover, I do not think, when we look back on 2020, that the causes of death or serious injury will have changed much from 2017, for example... [...] not feel obligated to come to work if they have any concern

About this email

As Bay Area shelter-in-place orders took effect, Musk tells staff they need not come to work if ill or uncomfortable, says no Tesla employee has tested positive, and argues the harm from coronavirus panic exceeds that of the virus.

Notes

REPLACES: 2020-03-16 Coronavirus: 'panic far exceeds' harm of the virus. Adds the closing fragment Electrek quotes from the end of the email. Electrek printed the bulk of the email in block quotes; the fifth passage is cut off with an ellipsis as published, and Electrek says Musk then reiterated that employees should 'not feel obligated to come to work if they have any concern' (last fragment below). The sign-off was not reproduced.

Where it came from

Leaked to press; attribution widely reported.

Tesla, company-wide memo. Tags: covid-19, fremont, health