Tech CEO refused to let employees work at home during pandemic -- and told them to 'run toward the crisis'

The CEO of a Virginia-based tech company has infuriated his own employees by forcing them to keep coming into the office during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bloomberg reports that Michael Saylor, the CEO of analytics software firm MicroStrategy Inc., sent out a memo to employees this week in which he told them they could not work from home and urged them to "run toward the crisis, not away from it."

He also told them that their presence at the office was needed to meet the company's productivity goals.

"If we wish to maintain our productivity, we need to continue working in these offices," Saylor wrote. "It is soul-stealing and debilitating to embrace the notion of social distancing and economic hibernation."

After being contacted by Bloomberg News about the memo, Saylor abruptly reversed course and let his employees work remotely, while acknowledging that his initial decision was "off the mark."

"Public-health officials have pleaded for social distancing that can be difficult in corporate settings," Bloomberg notes. "But plenty of American workers aren’t being given the option to stay home, even when their duties might be done from outside the workplace—forcing them to choose between the fear of getting sick and the fear of being fired."