TSLA Tesla Inc

By Sarah E. Needleman and Patience Haggin 

Some businesses for days played down the health threat of the new coronavirus or directed employees to continue coming into offices as federal and local health authorities have called for flexible work arrangements to slow the spread of the disease.

Closely held Hill Restaurant Group recently said it wouldn't close its seven eateries in the Washington, D.C., area before reversing course. Ad agency holding company Omnicom Group Inc. and technology firm MicroStrategy Inc. maintained -- until this week -- that most employees should come into work.

The companies say their actions have been aimed at avoiding service disruptions or other outcomes that might cause serious financial harm. In some instances, company leaders have argued that the new coronavirus isn't as dire a threat as other infectious diseases.

Experts say the novel coronavirus poses a major health threat in part because there is no vaccine to protect people against Covid-19, the potentially deadly illness caused by the virus.

State and county officials have encouraged businesses to send workers home in recent days while many businesses -- including in retail, entertainment and hospitality -- have opted to close temporarily. Some jurisdictions that have mandated closures have carved out exemptions for first-responders and "essential" personnel in health-care fields or at grocery stores and banks.

In a more-than-3,100-word memo to employees Monday that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor he opposed social distancing -- the practice of sharply limiting interpersonal contact, as recommended by health officials around the world to slow infection rates -- and urged employees to come to work. However, he added that offices would close if required by local officials and that employees could work from home in certain situations including a lack of child care.

"There is undoubtedly stress on the medical system and a tragedy for the senior population, but no reason to believe it is risky for otherwise healthy people to go to work, school, or live our lives," wrote Mr. Saylor, whose firm provides analytics and mobility applications for businesses. "It is soul-stealing and debilitating to embrace the notion of social distancing & economic hibernation."

A MicroStrategy software developer in his 20s said he and many colleagues he heard from were stunned by Mr. Saylor's memo. "Just because old people are dying from [the coronavirus] doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried about it," he said, adding that he has worked from home during snow storms without hiccups. "We could give it to family members."

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for MicroStrategy forwarded an email Mr. Saylor sent to the company's roughly 2,300 employees Wednesday in which the executive expressed a change of heart.

"As I reflect as someone who cares deeply about MicroStrategy and its employees, it's time for me to listen to our employees, leaders, and governments," Mr. Saylor wrote. "Effective today, MicroStrategy is moving to a voluntary work-from-home policy and we encourage you to work remotely."

Shutting down even for a brief period could be devastating for many small firms, said Tom Johnson, managing partner of Hill Restaurant Group, in a post he wrote on a trade group's private Facebook page Sunday saying he opposed closing his eateries' doors.

The post was later shared publicly online, and Mr. Johnson said he has since received several threatening phone calls and emails. "We were villainized overnight," he said, adding that he regrets the tone of his post. "We weren't trying to say we don't care or that the virus is something to not take seriously."

Mr. Johnson said local officials had ordered restaurants to keep tables at least 6 feet apart -- a mandate that some of his restaurants aren't large enough to support -- and to prohibit patrons from sitting at restaurant bars.

"I don't know if we're going to make it through this," said Mr. Johnson, who has since closed the company's restaurants after Washington, D.C., officials ordered all eateries to cease table service Monday. "I'm not some huge conglomerate."

This week a local California sheriff's office where Tesla Inc.'s U.S. car factory is located said activities there should be limited to "minimum basic operation only" after the auto maker's Chief Executive Elon Musk publicly played down the significance of the viral pandemic.

In an email to staffers Monday Mr. Musk said the harm from the panic over the novel coronavirus is more dangerous than the actual disease, reiterating past comments he has made on social media. He told workers they would be permitted to stay home and said, "I will personally be at work, but that's just me."

On Monday Mr. Musk tweeted that "danger of panic still far exceeds danger of corona imo," using an abbreviation for the phrase "in my opinion." He also retweeted a message posted from Tesla's main Twitter account that indicated the company's employees were working to bring its electric vehicles to customers. "Model Y deliveries begin!" it said. Operations at the factory were continuing as of midmorning Wednesday.

New York-based Omnicom until this week allowed only some of its 70,000 employees to work remotely. After an anonymous online petition on Change.org called for companywide remote work, the advertising-agency holding company updated its policy Sunday. In a staff-wide email, Omnicom CEO John Wren gave employees permission to work from home, requiring only "essential staff" to come into the company's offices.

An Omnicom spokeswoman didn't respond to requests for comment.

Visual-effects artists in the film industry are pushing for permission to work from home, too. Vancouver, Canada-based visual-effects artist Mario Rokicki created an online petition Saturday asking the Motion Picture Association of America to put aside contractual obligations barring visual-effects artists from remote work.

Visual-effects studios typically work for a film studio under a nondisclosure agreement and security certificate that allow them to perform work only inside studio offices, Mr. Rokicki said. He said he hopes the MPAA, or its big-studio members, ease these obligations during the pandemic.

His petition had over 5,600 signatures on Tuesday afternoon. The MPAA didn't comment.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com and Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 18, 2020 16:50 ET (20:50 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.