Elon Mails

← All emails Tesla · 2020

“First, I’d like to be super clear that if…”

Elon Musk to Everybody, March 16, 2020

Email sent the day Bay Area counties issued shelter-in-place orders while Fremont stayed open. CNBC also quoted a closing line not reproduced by Electrek. Body is the passages Electrek quoted, in order.

Leaked
From
Elon Musk
Sent
Monday, March 16, 2020
To
Everybody
Subject
Not shown in source

Only part of this email is public. The text below is the portion quoted in the source.

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: (CDC statistic).
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