• Wall Street jobs pay well, but work-from-home opportunities tend to be slim.
• JPMorgan is considering whether to call all its employees back to the office full time.
• Check out the RTO policies at the biggest financial firms like JPMorgan, Blackstone, and Citadel. 

Every day it seems as if another company is calling its workers back to the office five days a week. Amazon's office staff are back to their seats Monday through Friday, starting this month, as are the employees of telecom giant AT&T. JPMorgan Chase is also considering returning to a five-day workweek, according to Bloomberg News. 

Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and hedge funds like Citadel have been at the forefront of efforts to get employees working in the same place since the pandemic kicked off the work-from-home phenomenon. Goldman's CEO David Solomon famously blasted the work-from-home phenomenon as an "aberration" before most Americans were even vaccinated. Citadel's Ken Griffin said he feared that work-from-home was harming the nation and wished President Joe Biden would do something about it. 

So, which Wall Street firms are still letting employees work from home at least part of the time?  Here is our list of back-to-work mandates at the largest financial services companies.

Goldman Sachs 

Goldman Sachs started calling workers back in June 2021 and was initially once of the few financial firms to buck to remote work trend and demand pretty much everyone return to the office five days a week. 

Goldman started by welcoming employees back with ice cream and food trucks to get there. By 2022, it was actively monitoring attendance via ID badge swipes. In 2023, it cracked down on laggards, reminding staffers that the 5-days-a-week policy is for everyone — even during the dog days of summer. 

JPMorgan 

JPMorgan started calling workers back in July 2021 on a rolling basis and by 2022, had developed a hybrid work policy that was supposed to result in just 50% of the bank's employees returning to the office five days a week, including people who work in bank branches or in investment-banking jobs like sales and trading.

By April 2022, Dimon said that 40% of the bank's employees, which then numbered about 270,000, would be permitted to work a few days at home, while about 10% could work from home full time. Everyone else was expected to be in the office five days a week.

The next April, Dimon called all of the bank's managing directors back to the office five days a week, whether they worked in demanding revenue-producing jobs or led back-office departments like technology and compliance. Everyone else must be in at least three days a week. 

Like Goldman, JPMorgan has also been tracking attendance through ID badge swipes, data that it collects into a dashboard that can churn out reports for managers and other senior leaders.    

A spokesman for JPMorgan, which reported having 316,043 workers at the end of September, declined to comment on Bloomberg's reporting that it may soon revert to a five-day-a-week schedule for everyone. He said that roughly 70% of the bank's employees were already back in the office five days a week, while everyone else was back three or four days a week.

Citigroup 

Citi's CEO Jane Fraser is one of the few Wall Street CEOs who has not participated in the work-from-home bashing. Instead, she's embraced a hybrid work policy that currently allows most employees to work three days from the office and two days at home, depending on the job. Bank branch employees, for example, are still required to go in five days a week. 

Fraser has also not shied away from reminding the troops that working from home is a privilege, not a right. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023, she said that the bank was calling workers with productivity issues back to their desks. 

"We do measure productivity very carefully," she said, according to Bloomberg. "You can see how productive someone is or isn't, and if they're not being productive we bring them back to the office, or back to the site, and we give them the coaching they need until they bring the productivity back up again."

A spokeswoman for the bank said Citi is "committed to our hybrid work model. She said that the majority of employees still work on a hybrid schedule, or at least three days in the office and up to two days remotely.

Bank of America 

Bank of America's policy has morphed over time. In early 2022, it encouraged employees to work from the office more often but left room for flexibility at the manager's discretion. By May of that year, investment banking employees at all levels were being ordered to return to the office between four and five days a week.

Since 2022, Bank of America has required employees who are client-facing, like bankers and traders, to be in the office or meeting with clients five days a week. Everyone else must be in the office three days a week. A BofA spokesman confirmed that the policy established in 2022 remains in place.  

Early last year, the bank issued "letters of education" to employees who were in violation of the bank's return-to-office policies, BI reported. "Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action," one of these letters said.

Morgan Stanley 

Morgan Stanley's new CEO Ted Pick has not commented publicly on the company's remote work policy since taking the role in January 2024. His predecessor, James Gorman, however, was a big proponent of working from the office, telling Bloomberg in 2023 that working from home is "not a choice." 

"They don't get to choose their compensation, they don't get to choose their promotion, they don't get to choose to stay home five days a week," Gorman said in an interview in Davos. 

That said, Morgan Stanley has allowed for some remote work, depending on the job. "At Morgan Stanley, we're kind of business unit by business unit. It's three or four days in the office," Gorman said at the time.

BlackRock

BlackRock's employees have been making use of its new Hudson Yards headquarters in New York City. 

The world's largest asset manager has required its employees to work in the office four days a week starting in September 2023, with the option to work from home one day a week, BI previously reported.   

Citadel 

Citadel's Griffin is a true believer that teams work better and faster when they're in the same room. His $66 billion hedge fund and his market maker, Citadel Securities,  have been full time in the office since June 2021.  

"We make so much money because our competition plays in their pajamas – and that's just been a home run for us," Griffin told Goldman partner Raj Mahajan in an interview for the bank's Talks at GS series in June 2023. 

Blackstone 

Blackstone employees have been back in the office five days a week since June 2021. 

To make its staff more comfortable with the initial return to office, Blackstone spent $20 million on Covid safety and specific precautions, a source told BI in 2021, including covering cab fares for employees' commute.

Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, has kept to a flexible schedule. Since September 2021, the fund has required staff to be in the office a minimum of two days a week. 

 Managers and department heads, however, can require additional days in the office, according to the firm's website. On days employees are in, the firm focuses on taking "advantage of our shared location," it reads. Department heads and managers can require additional days onsite depending on the employee's role and business needs.

Millennium 

Izzy Englander's Millennium experimented with a hybrid working arrangement in 2021. At that time, the firm required its employees to work in the office at least three days a week.

Since then, most employees have been in the office 5 days a week, according to a person familiar with the firm. 

• Internal documents say Amazon workers in the UK can apply to work from home up to two days a week.
• Staffers in the Netherlands are following previous guidance of three days in office, BI has learned.
• Amazon implemented a global five-days-a-week return-to-office policy on January 2.

Amazon's five-days-a-week return-to-office policy appears to be more flexible for some European employees than their US-based counterparts.

Employees in the UK can apply to work from home for one or two days a week, while Amazon workers in the Netherlands are following previous guidance allowing them to work from home for up to two days a week, Business Insider has learned.

A copy of Amazon's "Flexible Work Arrangement" policy document for the US, seen by BI, doesn't explicitly say employees can request to work from home for one or two days a week. The document, last updated on December 17, says Amazon "may grant exceptions for work arrangements" to staffers in the US "who are in good standing on a case-by-case basis."

Amazon announced in September that employees globally would be required to work from the office five days a week starting on January 2. Some locations have delayed the five-day RTO policy because of insufficient office space, while in other cases it appears to have been delayed by local employment requirements.

On December 20, Amazon's management team in the Netherlands sent employees an email, seen by BI, that said it had entered into discussions with its works council — an organization representing employees — to define and introduce a flexible working arrangement.

"Until further notice, while everyone is welcome and encouraged to work from the office for five days per week, you may continue to follow the current in-office guidance for your role and team into the new year," it said.

Under that guidance, employees in the Netherlands can work up to two days a week from home until they're notified of the outcome of the discussions between the works council and management, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Nafsika Karavida, an attorney at the law firm Reavis Page Jump, told BI that the differences between Amazon's RTO rollout in Europe and in the US were "most likely due to cultural, legal, and operational differences" that could limit its "ability to act unilaterally."

Karavida added that employers in the Netherlands cannot legally enforce an RTO policy without the approval of a works council.

Like Amazon employees in Germany, staffers in the UK can formally apply to work from home for one or two days a week, an internal policy document seen by BI said. It added that employees based in the UK had a "statutory right to make a formal application" to change their work location, among other working conditions. Approvals will be subject to a three-month trial period, the document said.

Karavida said Amazon's policy in the UK was shaped by flexible-working regulations that took effect last April. "Although these regulations do not grant employees an automatic right to work from home, they obligate employers to consider such requests reasonably on a case-by-case basis," she said.

Amazon faces RTO delays

The UK, Netherlands, and Germany are the latest examples of different implementations of Amazon's five-day RTO policy. An internal list identified more than 40 locations where Amazon's full five-day RTO policy was delayed, including Santa Clara, California; Hamburg, Germany; and Belfast, UK.

Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, said in a September blog post that returning full time to the office would help the company "further strengthen" its culture and teams.

An Amazon spokesperson referred BI to that blog post, in which Jassy also said that "it was not a given" that staffers could work remotely two days a week before the pandemic, adding, "That will also be true moving forward."

In the US, Amazon employees can submit requests for offsite work for a week or for more than 90 days. Those are also reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

But unlike the policies for the UK and Germany, the US's flexible-working document doesn't specifically mention the option for employees to formally apply to work from home for one or two days a week; it details only offsite-work and part-time-work arrangements.

An internal Amazon FAQ document circulated at the time of the RTO announcement last year said employees with existing approval, such as a "Military Spouse Remote Work Exception," didn't need to change where they worked.

• AT&T began implementing its staggered five-day return-to-office mandate on Monday.
• Workers told BI that limited available desks and elevators at some locations complicated their office return.
• As more workers are slated to arrive in phases, projects to add capacity are underway.

The first wave of AT&T's five-day return-to-office mandate started on Monday. Conversations with half a dozen AT&T workers across the country this week indicate it hasn't been off to a smooth start.

At the Dallas-based telecom giant's Atlanta offices, AT&T employees told Business Insider that a lack of enough open desks, parking lots that quickly filled up, and a limited number of elevators is complicating the company's plan to phase out hybrid work.

Internal documents obtained by BI suggest that AT&T is aware that its RTO mandate is asking more people to work on-site than the number of workstations it has at some of its offices.

An internal FAQ that was updated last week said that employees in at least one division should expect workstations for 70-80% of those who are assigned to a particular location.

"As a reminder, employees should not leave personal items, make signage, or add name plates on desks," the document said. "These items will be removed."

A spokesperson for AT&T did not provide immediate comment when contacted by Business Insider.

The document follows a memo last month from CTO Jeremy Legg sent to employees that said his AT&T Technology Services division "will not offer one-for-one seating per employee" under the new RTO rules.

One employee at the Atlanta offices told BI on Monday that he arrived before 7 a.m. to ensure he got a workspace.

Another Atlanta worker said he arrived before 6 a.m. and that the available desks he saw had been filled by employees by 9 a.m., at which point some employees sat in the dining area or around conference tables.

"I actually enjoyed coming to the office and even came four to five days a week," the employee said. He said that he felt the working environment "has deteriorated" as more employees returned to the office since last year's three-days-in-office requirement.

The worker said AT&T employees have already been competing for space and sometimes speaking over one another while conducting simultaneous Microsoft Teams meetings. The elimination of hybrid work is heightening those challenges, the employee added.

The two Atlanta workers, as well as employees at other offices, told BI that finding open parking in a timely manner has been a challenge for themselves and for colleagues, especially at offices that have been converted from less-dense cubicle setups to more tightly packed floor plans.

In communications sent to employees, AT&T has said it will continue to monitor workspace capacity and usage and will make adjustments accordingly. Legg's memo said that the company anticipates some percentage of workers to be out of the office each week due to sick days, work travel, vacation, or other reasons.

Workers in Atlanta also reported seeing signs in front of the office's elevators (which they said have seen increasingly long wait times) with motivational quotes recommending they use nearby stairs instead.

Workers said the signs included phrases like "There is no elevator to the top of the corporate ladder," and "There will be challenges, but each step you take brings you closer to who you're meant to be. Take the stairs." It wasn't clear exactly when the signs were placed, but the Atlanta employees said the signs were gone by Tuesday morning.

One of the Atlanta employees told BI that an additional elevator is planned to be installed at the location.

Meanwhile, more workers are slated to arrive this year under subsequent phases of the company's five-day RTO mandate. AT&T previously said different divisions are setting their own schedules according to their business needs.

AT&T's move away from hybrid work follows similar moves from Amazon, Dell, and others that are requiring workers to be in the office for the entire workweek.

"We believe there is great value in having people connecting, collaborating, and innovating together in an office setting," said one AT&T memo, which was distributed after the initial return-to-office mandate was announced in 2023. "Consolidating our work locations will also help us reduce costs and simplify things for our employees and our customers."

Nearly all of the dozen workers BI has spoken to in recent weeks have said they feel that the new rules may be an attempt to reduce its US workforce.

"This is not about collaboration," one of the Atlanta workers said. "If they can cut costs and have people leave because they're uncomfortable, that's the sweet spot."

If you are an AT&T employee who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• Amazon delayed its full return-to-office plan in some places because of insufficient office space.
• An internal list shows where Amazon employees will work three days a week until space is ready.
• The list has more than 40 locations where the full five-day RTO policy is delayed.

Amazon delayed its five-day return-to-office plan in some locations because of a lack of space, as Business Insider recently reported.

An internal Amazon list viewed by BI shows where employees are being asked to continue following the company's policy requiring only three days a week in the office.

The locations include major tech hubs such as Santa Clara, California; Austin; Beijing; Shenzhen, China; and Bengaluru, India.

Amazon's original guidance required employees to work from the office five days a week beginning January 2. An Amazon spokesperson told BI on Tuesday that buildings were ready for most employees on that day.

The company's real-estate team late last year started notifying employees that they could continue following their current in-office guidance until workspaces were ready, with delays stretching as late as May, according to internal Amazon notifications viewed by BI.

The company has said the return to office will improve collaboration and bring other benefits. CEO Andy Jassy, in a memo announcing the mandate, said Amazon made the decision to "further strengthen" its culture and teams.

Here are more of the Amazon locations where employees are being told to continue working three days a week in the office: Raleigh, Annapolis Junction, Baltimore, Columbia, Austin, Cupertino, Irvine, Nashville, Boulder, Charlotte, Houston, Jersey City, Newark, Atlanta, Dallas, East Palo Alto, Mexico City, Santa Clara, São Paulo, Tampa, Miami, Brooklyn, Columbus, New York, Sacramento, Hamburg, Munich, Tel Aviv, Amman, Milan, Cairo, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Dubai, Istanbul, Beijing, Hyderabad, Shenzhen, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Shanghai.

Are you a tech-industry employee or someone else with insight to share?

Contact the reporter, Ashley Stewart, via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ([email protected]). Use a nonwork device.

• JPMorgan is gearing up to call its workers back to the office five days a week, Bloomberg reported.
• The bank's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been an outspoken critic of remote work.
• See how the bank's return-to-work policies have changed over the years.

JPMorgan Chase may soon call all its workers back to the office, which would make it the latest large finance company to return to pre-pandemic working conditions.

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that America's biggest bank by assets was developing a new policy that could eliminate remote work. The policy, which has not been announced and is subject to change, would follow Amazon's decision to call its workers back to the office five days a week starting this month.

A spokesman for JPMorgan, which reported having 316,043 workers at the end of September, declined to comment on the company's plans. But he said that roughly 70% of the bank's employees were already back in the office five days a week, while everyone else was back three or four days a week.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been an outspoken critic of remote work, and the company has been calling people back to the office for several years now.

In September, during a discussion with The Atlantic, Dimon criticized the federal government's remote-work policies, saying he'd "make Washington, DC, go back to work."

"I can't believe, when I come down here, the empty buildings. The people who work for you not going to the office," Dimon said, adding: "That bothers me. I don't allow that."

Here's a timeline of JPMorgan's work-from-home policies.

July 2021: JPMorgan started calling workers back to the office on a rolling basis, focusing on people who worked in bank branches or in investment-banking jobs like sales and trading.

April 2022: Dimon said in a letter to shareholders that 40% of the bank's employees, which then numbered about 270,000, would be permitted to work a few days at home, while about 10% could work from home full time. Everyone else was expected to be in the office five days a week.

April 2023: Dimon called all of the bank's managing directors back to the office five days a week, whether they worked in demanding revenue-producing jobs or led back-office departments like technology and compliance.

January 2025: Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan was working on a policy that could call all its workers back to the office five days a week.

• Franchises and sequels dominated the 2024 box office, including "Inside Out 2" and "Deadpool & Wolverine."
• The only movie in the top 15 not based on an existing film was "Wicked," which was based on a Broadway musical.
• Sequels and franchises continue to be lucrative for studios.

Franchises, sequels, and adapted stories dominated the box office in 2024. Not a single original story cracked the top 15.

The highest-grossing films worldwide, according to numbers compiled by Box Office Mojo, included sequels like "Inside Out 2," "Dune: Part Two," and "Gladiator II," and franchise titles like "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," and "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes."

"Wicked," based on a popular Broadway play, was the only film in the top 15 not based on an existing movie. "It Ends With Us," based on a popular book, came in at number 16, while "The Wild Robot," based on a kids' book, came in at number 18.

The top-grossing film not based on an existing movie, play, book, or comic was John Krasinski's "IF," which earned over $190 million globally and came in at number 24.

Films based on existing intellectual property have generally dominated the box office in recent years, though not always quite as much as in 2024.

In 2023, the top three highest-grossing films were "Barbie," "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," and "Oppenheimer." While those were based on a toy, a video game, and a book, none were sequels or part of an existing film franchise, unlike the top three in 2024. Two movies in the top 15 in 2023 — the Chinese film "No More Bets" and Pixar's "Elemental" — were original stories.

A survey commissioned by the streamer Tubi found that 74% of millennial and Gen Z respondents preferred originals to remakes. The survey, conducted by The Harris Poll in late 2023 and early 2024, included over 2,500 adults who streamed at least one hour of video a week.

The box office numbers, however, show that sequels and franchises tend to pay off for studios. That was true for Pixar in 2024. And despite indications of superhero fatigue, the success of "Deadpool & Wolverine" showed moviegoers aren't yet finished with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, told The New York Times about 76% of Americans aged 12 to 74 saw a movie in a theater in 2024.

"We feel very good, which is not something many of us would have said last year at this time," he said.

Plenty more sequels and franchise flicks are set to come out in 2025, from "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" to a live-action "Lilo & Stitch" remake.

• Commercial real estate sales star says data from his 40-year career is key to unlocking the power of AI.
• Bob Knakal has sold $22 billion of property, making him one of America's most successful brokers.
• He says he was fired by property giant JLL in February 2024. Now, he plans a career revival.

Bob Knakal climbed to the top of the commercial real estate sales business by focusing not on billion-dollar Manhattan skyscrapers, but on the tens of thousands of ordinary apartment buildings and land sites across New York City.

Now, the 62-year-old sales executive is adding a new approach by using artificial intelligence.

He says his new sales firm, BKREA, will harness property data and market observations that he has meticulously collected since the mid-1980s and couple it with the blooming powers of AI.

Using the much-heralded technology, Knakal believes he can compete with far larger real estate services companies with only a handful of employees. BKREA presently employs 15 workers and Knakal doesn't imagine getting much larger.

"The extent to which the world is going to change over the next five years is going to blow away what's happened over the last 40," Knakal said. "Realizing that, the first thing I did when I started the new firm – my first hire was an AI guy."

Many commercial real estate firms and professionals have begun to use AI – or have plans to — in order to gather market insights and sort through mountains of data, produce promotional and marketing materials, and help organize and manage client relationships and outreach.

Knakal says he believes his firm can harness the technology more effectively in its niche because the quality and consistency of his data is better than those of rivals.

Although New York City's property records are available to all online, Knakal has gathered reams of proprietary observations over the years, including nuanced information that is often not public. A rental apartment building slated for demolition and redevelopment, for instance, may have had holdout tenants that compromised its value. A vacant land site, meanwhile, may have an access agreement with its neighbor that would allow construction work to proceed more smoothly, enhancing its price tag.

If "you're putting bad data in, you're getting bad data out," Knakal said, adding that he spent three years during the pandemic "personally verifying 2,417 development site sales in the city" to further glean such insights.

"So how do I compete with the big firms?" Knakal asked. "Show me even one of them that's had the same head of research for 10 years."

Tenure at JLL

If Knakal, whose outward demeanor comes across as perpetually sunny, seems slightly irked by some of the big corporate real estate firms that dominate the nation's commercial property sales and services businesses, that's because he is.

Knakal built his career largely outside of that world, founding the small brokerage company Massey Knakal in 1988 with business partner Paul Massey. In subsequent decades, the pair grew the company into one of New York City's largest and most prolific property sales firms. In late 2014, the two men sold the 250-person business to the global commercial real estate company Cushman & Wakefield for $100 million.

Knakal joined Cushman as part of the sale, but left in 2018 for the rival corporate real estate services giant JLL.

Knakal's tenure at JLL came to an end in February 2024 when he was abruptly fired.

Recounting his exit, he said that he had been a guest on CNBC early that month to discuss the property market with the news anchor Brian Sullivan. He was subsequently warned by a person from JLL's marketing department that such media appearances first required company approval. Knakal said he explained to the person that his employment contract offered him "unfettered access to the press."

Shortly after, Knakal was the subject of a weekend profile in The New York Times. On Monday, he said he received a call from a JLL executive requesting an urgent meeting. Knakal sat down with the executive in a conference room in JLL's Manhattan office.

"As soon as I walked into the room, the head of HR walked in," Knakal said. "I knew I was being fired."

Knakal said his dismissal capped off what had been "the dark ages of my career."

"I don't think they appreciated what I brought to the table," he said.

A JLL spokesperson said: "We thank Bob for his contributions to the firm and wish him all the best in his future endeavors."

Massey, who also departed Cushman in 2018 and remains close with Knakal, said that while Knakal was one of the "most upbeat people" he knows, he had become "honest about how he was feeling: he wasn't having as much fun" in the commercial real estate business.

A desire to adapt and compete

BKREA mixes in analogue elements as well. In his new office on West 36th Street is an enormous printed map of Manhattan below 110th Street on the west side and 96th Street on the east to the island's southern tip. Propped across 8 tables, the 24-foot-long, 8-foot-wide printout details 27,649 commercial buildings and development sites in a way that both conveys the immensity of the market but is also more comprehensible to the senses.

Seth Samowitz, a 30-year old data expert who Knakal hired earlier this year to spearhead BKREA's AI efforts, said that he first thought having the giant map in an overwhelmingly digital world was "crazy." He has since come around.

"Honestly, it's the best marketing tool in the entire world," Samowitz said.

Knakal said he has used the map as a key prop in pitching his services to 26 clients so far. "I've gotten 26 exclusives."

Currently, he has been hired to sell about $2 billion of property assets, his largest pipeline in years. Knakal said he has sold 2,342 properties totaling about $22 billion over his career, more than almost any other broker in the country, he believes.

James Nelson, 49, now head of tri-state investment sales at Avison Young, began his career at Massey Knakal in the 1990s. He considers Knakal a mentor, saying that he admires Knakal's hunger to continue to adapt, innovate, and compete.

"Bob talks about what he's going to be doing in 10, 20, 30 years and it's being a broker," Nelson said. "He enjoys the process and the thrill of the hunt."

• Business Insider rounded up the highest-grossing movies of the year, according to Box Office Mojo.
• Sequels, superhero movies, and animated movies were among the top films.
• Two movies surpassed $1 billion globally: "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Inside Out 2."

Film franchises dominated the worldwide box office this year.

This year's top-performing movies included animated films, superhero fare, a Godzilla and Kong team-up, and a return to Arrakis.

Keep reading to see which 15 movies came out on top at the box office in 2024.

All box-office numbers and Rotten Tomatoes scores on this list are current as of December 27, 2024, and are subject to change.

15. "It Ends With Us"

Worldwide gross: $350,986,018

Reported production budget: $25 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 55%

The film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel "It Ends With Us" was one of the biggest surprises at the 2024 box office.

In less than two weeks in theaters, the movie surpassed $180 million at the box office globally — a tremendous feat for a project that was reportedly financed for just $25 million. It's possible that fans of the book and those aware of the reports of a rift between Blake Lively and costar and director Justin Baldoni were intrigued by "It Ends With Us" and wanted to see what all the hype was about.

14. "Twisters"

Worldwide gross: $370,962,265

Reported production budget: $155 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 75%

After the box-office success of the rom-com "Anyone But You," Glen Powell continued his hot streak in Hollywood starring alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones in the stand-alone sequel to the 1996 disaster movie "Twister."

"Twisters" surpassed box office predictions, earning $32.2 million from release day and preview screenings and scoring a solid $80.5 million during its opening weekend.

13. "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"

Worldwide gross: $397,378,150

Reported production budget: $160 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 80%

Although "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" is one of the top-performing movies of the year, it earned the lowest global total compared to the three other films in the rebooted "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

12. "Bad Boys: Ride or Die"

Worldwide gross: $404,544,199

Reported production budget: $100 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 65%

Two years after his infamous slap at the Oscars, Will Smith made a comeback and regained box office glory with the fourth installment in the action-comedy franchise "Bad Boys."

"Ride or Die" was a hit domestically and overseas. In its opening weekend, the movie topped the global box office, making over $100 million and overperforming in key markets.

11. "Gladiator II"

Worldwide gross: $406,644,901

Reported production budget: $250 million to $300+ million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 71%

"Gladiator II," didn't win over critics as much as Ridley Scott's epic 2000 film "Gladiator," though many agreed that it delivered plenty of thrilling action sequences.

The sequel fell short of the first "Gladiator" movie at the box office too, grossing $100 million less — though still bringing in an impressive haul to end up on this list.

10. "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"

Worldwide gross: $451,100,435

Reported production budget: $100 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 76%

Nostalgic sequels don't always equate to success, but Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" was a slam dunk for Warner Bros.

Executives initially wanted the sequel to the 1988 "Beetlejuice" movie to forgo a theatrical release and head straight to streaming. But Burton disagreed. So they cut costs to lower the budget and justify a theatrical release — and it paid off.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" earned $41.5 million from release day and preview screenings, becoming the second-biggest opening day ever for a September release, after 2017's horror movie "It." The movie is also one of Burton's most commercially successful films.

9. "Venom: The Last Dance"

Worldwide gross: $476,368,152

Reported production budget: $120 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 41%

Sony's films about Spider-Man-adjacent characters don't have a great track record. But the "Venom" franchise, starring Tom Hardy, has become a fan favorite among the more disappointing and flat-out cringy movies. However, the third and final installment was the worst-performing "Venom" film at the box office.

8. "Kung Fu Panda"

Worldwide gross: $547,689,492

Reported production budget: $85 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 71%

The fourth "Kung Fu Panda" film, starring Jack Black as the voice of the panda named Po, earned the franchise's lowest critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes but racked up $26.5 million more than 2016's "Kung Fu Panda 3."

7. "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"

Worldwide gross: $571,750,016

Reported production budget: $135 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 54%

"Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," centered on the titular gargantuan creatures teaming up after being enemies in 2021's "Godzilla vs. Kong," rocked the box office.

"Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" surpassed box office projections in its opening weekend and became the second-biggest debut for Warner Bros. and Legendary's shared MonsterVerse franchise.

With $571 million earned globally, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" is now the highest-grossing movie in the Monsterverse.

6. "Wicked"

Worldwide gross: $586,301,620

Reported production budget: $150 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 88%

Jon M. Chu's film adaptation of the wildly popular stage musical of the same name was a critical and commercial success.

"Glicked," the combined name for the rivalry between "Gladiator II" and "Wicked," was this year's version of the 2023 "Barbenheimer" phenomenon. In the battle between gladiators and witches, the latter was the clear winner. "Wicked" earned a higher Rotten Tomatoes score and has grossed over half a billion at the global box office, so far.

Despite not being explicitly advertised as such, "Wicked" is the first in a two-part franchise. The sequel, "Wicked: For Good," hits theaters in November 2025.

5. "Dune: Part Two"

Worldwide gross: $714,444,358

Reported production budget: $190 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 92%

Following the success of the 2021 "Dune" adaptation, Denis Villeneuve released a sequel that completed Paul Atreides' (Timothée Chalamet) journey from Frank Herbert's first "Dune" novel.

Hailed by critics as a "sci-fi masterpiece," the 2024 sequel was rated higher and grossed $300 million more worldwide than "Dune: Part One."

4. "Moana 2"

Worldwide gross: $820,990,553

Reported production budget: $150 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 61%

"Moana 2" didn't make nearly as big a splash in pop culture as the original film did with catchy songs like "How Far I'll Go" and "You're Welcome." The sequel also had a drastically lower rating on Rotten Tomatoes than "Moana," which landed a 95% critics score.

Regardless, "Moana 2" performed much higher at the box office and was a clear win for Disney. The movie even broke Thanksgiving box office records, racking up $380 million globally at the time.

3. "Despicable Me 4"

Worldwide gross: $969,126,452

Reported production budget: $100 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 56%

Since the first "Despicable Me" movie was released in 2010, the franchise has been lucrative for Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios.

The fourth installment fell short of earning $1 billion, which "Despicable Me 3" achieved in 2017. "Despicable Me 4" also received the lowest critics score of all the movies on Rotten Tomatoes.

2. "Deadpool & Wolverine"

Worldwide gross: $1,338,073,645

Reported production budget: $200 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 78%

Some recent entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have received middling reactions from fans and critics alike, but the success of "Deadpool & Wolverine" indicates that perhaps the superhero slump might be over.

The third installment of the "Deadpool" franchise earned a lower critic score on Rotten Tomatoes than the previous two movies. But the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team-up surpassed the global earnings of its predecessors and is one of two films released in 2024 to hit $1 billion at the box office.

After less than 30 days in theaters, "Deadpool & Wolverine" dethroned Todd Phillips' 2019 film "Joker" to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

1. "Inside Out 2"

Worldwide gross: $1,698,765,616

Reported production budget: $200 million

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 91%

"Inside Out 2" fully surpassed expectations, grossing $155 million domestically and $295 million worldwide in its debut three-day weekend. The "Inside Out" sequel also earned the second-biggest domestic opening ever for an animated movie, following "Incredibles 2." It ended up being the highest-grossing film of 2024.

It feels like tech workers have caught very few breaks over the past several years, between ongoing mass layoffs, stagnating wages amid inflation, AI supposedly coming for jobs, and unpopular orders to return to office that, for many, threaten to disrupt work-life balance.

But in 2024, a potentially critical mass of tech workers seemed to reach a breaking point. As labor rights groups advocating for tech workers told Ars, these workers are banding together in sustained strong numbers and are either winning or appear tantalizingly close to winning better worker conditions at major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

In February, the industry-wide Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) noted that "the tech workers movement is far more expansive and impactful" than even labor rights advocates realized, noting that unionized tech workers have gone beyond early stories about Googlers marching in the streets and now "make the headlines on a daily basis."

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• AT&T's CTO told his US team there wouldn't be "one-for-one" seating upon the full office return.
• He added that AT&T would stagger its five-day-a-week mandate as more office space was constructed.
• Some teams may see their full office return delayed if construction doesn't finish in time, he said.

AT&T Technology Services employees in the US won't have "one-for-one" seating when they begin returning to the office five days a week in the new year, the company's chief technology officer wrote in a new memo.

The telecom giant's CTO, Jeremy Legg, detailed how the new in-office policy would be implemented across his US team in a Wednesday memo obtained by Business Insider.

The new in-office requirement for US AT&T Technology Services employees will begin a phased rollout on January 6 and is expected to be fully implemented for most teams by March 3, the memo said.

"Our purpose at AT&T is connecting people to greater possibility," Legg wrote. "We firmly believe that working together, in person and in proximity to our peers, is the best way for ATS employees to fulfill that purpose."

Legg oversees AT&T's technology organizations for business, consumer, IT and cloud, data and analytics, security, network architecture and AT&T Labs, and new product development. The AT&T Technology Services team has roughly 10,000 workers in the US.

AT&T told BI that organizations within the company have the flexibility to determine the right approach for their teams based on business needs and that many were staggering the return of employees.

The memo came after BI first reported that AT&T was tightening its return-to-office mandate from three days a week to five full workdays.

Legg said in the email that the company understood that not every employee could be on-site every single day because of "travel, vacations, or other reasons" and that "leaders will work with employees to provide the needed occasional flexibility."

While several expansion projects are underway in Atlanta and Dallas, Legg said AT&T "will not offer one-for-one seating per employee" and the company "will observe capacity vs. demand and make adjustments" as needed.

Legg's memo said that teams assigned to AT&T's Atlanta-area locations would be notified if their full-return-to-office date was delayed as construction on additional space progressed.

Several employees have told BI that workspace capacity has been a challenge, even with the prior hybrid arrangement.

Employees told BI it's common for workers to end up sitting in the hallways or working in the cafeteria to avoid running afoul of the company's attendance-tracking system.

One employee said their office had more than 1,200 people assigned to it but only about 150 desks available.

"I know returning to the office 5 days a week is a significant change for some," Legg said in his memo. "By coming together in person, we can strengthen our connections, foster a vibrant culture, and achieve our shared goals."

Read the full memo

Dear ATS U.S.-Based Management Employees,

Our purpose at AT&T is connecting people to greater possibility. We firmly believe that working together, in person and in proximity to our peers, is the best way for ATS employees to fulfill that purpose. By fostering in-person interactions, we can form stronger relationships, build trust and enhance our collaboration, innovation, and overall effectiveness as a team.

Full-Time Office Presence in 2025

That's why l'm asking all employees with Full Time Office designations (NFTO, MFTO CFTO) to return to the office full time, with staggered starts based on management level and office space availability. FTO employees in ATS will work in the office full-time, 5 days a week according to this schedule:

• January 6, 2025: All U.S.-based supervising level 4s and above
• February 3, 2025: All U.S.-based supervising level 3s and above in all locations except Atlanta and Alpharetta¹
• March 3, 2025²: All other U.S.-based management employees in all locations except Atlanta and Alpharetta¹

¹Construction of additional space is underway at Lenox, with an expected readiness date between April and June. As construction progresses, employees in Atlanta and Alpharetta will be notified when it's time to work in the office 5 days a week.

²Construction of additional space for ATS teams is underway at Dallas Headquarters and at 2900 West Plano Pkwy. Employees in these locations will return to the office March 3 if the space is ready. If completion is delayed, we will communicate further instructions to affected teams.

As we stagger the return to 5 days per week per the timeline above, FTO employees should continue to be present in the office 3 to 5 days per week. There is no change in expectations for Future Office Workers or virtual workers. We periodically review the needs of the business and may occasionally change an employee's office designation based on those needs.

Fostering Collaboration

Between now and early first quarter 2025, we will be working with Global Workplace Services to align teams to neighborhoods on each of our campuses.

Even with employees working full time in the office, we know that not all employees will be in every day due to travel, vacations, or other reasons. We will not offer one-for-one seating per employee. We will observe capacity vs. demand and make adjustments working with Workplace Services as needed.

Flexibility and Accountability

We know employees occasionally need to work remotely for various reasons. Leaders will work with employees to provide the needed occasional flexibility. This balance between flexibility and accountability is essential to maintaining our high standards of performance and collaboration. Senior leadership will review overall presence trends via How and Where We Work presence dashboards. With this data, we will work toward improving things like seating, availability of amenities, and parking options.

Next Steps

The How and Where ATS Works SharePoint site is your definitive source of information on returning to the office full-time, including campus and neighborhood information as it becomes available. It is currently being updated to reflect the changing expectations for our organization. Supervisors can also answer questions. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved.

Additional Thoughts

I know returning to the office 5 days a week is a significant change for some. As we outlined during Analyst and Investor Day, we have tremendous momentum in growing this company the right way. That momentum will accelerate when we reap the benefits of faster collaboration and innovation. By coming together in person, we can strengthen our connections, foster a vibrant culture, and achieve our shared goals.

Your dedication and commitment to excellence are the driving forces behind our success.

Thank you for your continued hard work and support. I look forward to seeing you all in the office and working together to create an even brighter future for ATS.

Jeremy

If you are an AT&T worker who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646-768-4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a nonwork device when reaching out.

• Grace Chang occasionally commutes from Washington, DC, to NYC for work.
• She said the four-hour commute is worth it because the job is a good fit for her.
• Remote working arrangements have made it easier for some Americans to become supercommuters.

Grace Chang says the occasional four-hour commute to her job is worth it but could be unsustainable in the long term.

Earlier this year, Chang, 28, felt burned out from her finance job at a hospitality company in Washington, DC. She began exploring new opportunities but struggled to find a role in DC that would allow her to grow and be less demanding.

After expanding her search outside the Beltway, Chang accepted a financial planning and analysis position, which she started in May. The role pays $120,000 annually, but it came with a downside: a commute roughly every other week from DC to New York City. Chang asked that the name of her employer be excluded for privacy reasons.

For her journey, Chang said she wakes up around 4 a.m. on Monday, catches the 5:05 a.m. Amtrak train at Union Station, arrives in New York City around 8:30 a.m., and is at her midtown Manhattan office 30 minutes later. She usually stays in New York until Wednesday or Thursday, and since her company doesn't pay for lodging, she crashes with friends or family who live in or near the city.

"I'm not 100% sure if the job is worth the commute, but it pays the bills and is a good stepping stone for other opportunities in the future," she said.

Chang is among the supercommuters who have embraced long treks to work in recent years: A Stanford University study published in June defined a supercommuter as anyone with a journey of more than 75 miles. The study, which was conducted by Stanford economists Nick Bloom and Alex Finan, found that the share of supercommutes in the 10 largest US cities was 32% higher between November 2023 and February than between the same time period four years earlier.

The economists said this uptick was likely tied to increased remote working arrangements. For example, some Americans who moved away from cities during the pandemic — in part for lower housing costs — decided they could tolerate their commute when their employers called them back to the office.

Supercommuting isn't the long-term goal

Chang said her employer doesn't have a specific in-office policy, but her manager wants her to work in person sometimes, particularly during busier periods.

When Chang landed the job, she never seriously considered moving to New York City. She and her husband have lived in the DC area for over a decade, and her husband works locally.

"We have friends and community here and didn't want to uproot so quickly," she said. "After I started making the commute, I just got used to it."

Staying with friends and family has helped Chang save money on accommodations while she's in New York, but her commute still comes with a financial cost. If she buys well in advance of her trip, she said she can generally get a one-way train ticket for less than $100. She said Amtrak offers a 10-ride ticket pass for $790, which amounts to $79 per one-way ticket.

However, Chang said her role would likely have a lower salary if it were based in DC, in part because the city has a lower cost of living than NYC.

In recent weeks, Chang's manager said she could reduce her commute to once a month. She said she'd previously requested a less frequent commute once she was fully trained for her job: She's been in the role for over six months.

While Chang is open to jobs closer to home, she said she's enjoying her current role and is getting the career development she wanted.

"It's definitely not a long-term goal or aspiration to continue to do this, but what has made this doable is having a positive mentality toward commuting," she said. "If I dreaded it every week, I would have quit in the first month."

Do you have a long commute to work? Are you willing to share your story with a reporter? Reach out to [email protected].

• Staff at major companies have asked their leaders if there are plans to follow Amazon's full return to office.
• Firms like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have a hybrid setup — however, execs say they're eyeing productivity.
• Research findings on the subject are varied, and the debate will likely continue in 2025.

Executives at major companies are referencing a specific term to hedge when asked by employees if they plan to follow in Amazon's footsteps and implement a return to 5 days a week in the office.

That word? Productivity.

While Amazon has been the most high-profile example this year of a full return to office policy, set to go into effect in January, telecom giant AT&T has also elected to double down on in-person work with a similar 5-day policy, Business Insider first reported.

In the wake of Amazon's announcement, executives at both Google and Microsoft, which require employees to be in the office at least 3 days a week, have fielded questions from staff wondering if the days of hybrid work are numbered.

Microsoft's executive vice president of cloud and AI, Scott Guthrie, said the company wouldn't change the hybrid work policy unless it noticed a drop in productivity, BI reported in September.

In October, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had no plans to order employees back to the office, so long as employees remain productive during their at-home work days, BI previously reported.

Over at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg said last year that "early analysis of performance data," indicated productivity increases for early-career engineers in the office at least 3 days a week. A few months later, the company announced it was requiring employees to return to the office 3 days a week.

Executives at Dell called the company's sales team back to the office 5 days a week starting at the end of September, writing in a memo, "Our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite."

Though Amazon did not explicitly name productivity as a reason for its full return to the office, CEO Andy Jassy emphasized a similar term: effectiveness.

Being back in person 5 days a week makes it "easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another," he wrote at the time.

For those committing to a full return to office, preparing campuses for the influx of employees in the new year is its own challenge. Amazon has since delayed the announced January 2 effective date of the new mandate for some employees because it doesn't have enough office space in some locations, BI reported earlier this month.

As CEOs and company leaders keep an eye on how employees in remote or hybrid setups perform, various studies since the onset of the pandemic have attempted to measure and compare the productivity of employees who work at home and in-office. Research studies have produced conflicting results, further complicated by the matter of how best to define or measure productivity.

Goldman Sachs, which has a 5-day-in-office policy, reviewed several analyses that used different ways of evaluating changes in work-from-home productivity, from call-center workers who were randomly chosen to work from home to comparing the productivity of randomly assigned remote workers with their in-office peers.

In short, it's hard to say for sure, and executives are deciding what their long-term setup will be after a year in which some of the world's biggest companies put a renewed focus on being "lean" and "efficient."

Meanwhile, some employees have returned to commuting in (sometimes "coffee-badging" in and returning home), others have relocated to comply with a policy change, and some have resigned to pursue a hybrid or fully remote opportunity. As companies tighten their belts and conduct layoffs, other workers have taken to workplace forums to wonder if some of the RTO mandates have been a possible "quiet layoffs" tactic.

As more major global companies revisit their policies and make changes, CEOs are likely to face more questions on the topic going into the new year.

For some, the answer is simple: Stay productive and we'll stay flexible.

Amazon announced in September that it will require workers to be in the office five days a week starting in January. Employee backlash ensued, not just because return-to-office (RTO) mandates can be unpopular but also because Amazon is using some of the worst strategies for issuing RTO mandates.

Ahead of the mandate, Amazon had been letting many employees work remotely for two days a week, with a smaller number of workers being totally remote. But despite saying that employees would have to commute five days per week, the conglomerate doesn’t have enough office space to accommodate over 350,000 employees. Personnel in “at least seven cities,” including Phoenix and Austin, Texas, have had their RTO dates delayed until after January, Bloomberg reported today, citing “people familiar with the situation." Employees in Dallas won’t have enough space until March or April, and an office in New York City won’t have sufficient space until May, per Bloomberg's sources.

RTO dates are also delayed in Atlanta, Houston, and Nashville, Tennessee, Business Insider reported this week, citing “internal Amazon notifications.”

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Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have caused companies to lose some of their best workers, a study tracking over 3 million workers at 54 "high-tech and financial" firms at the S&P 500 index has found. These companies also have greater challenges finding new talent, the report concluded.

The paper, Return-to-Office Mandates and Brain Drain [PDF], comes from researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Baylor University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. The study, which was published in November, spotted this month by human resources publication HR Dive, and cites Ars Technica reporting, was conducted by collecting information on RTO announcements and sourcing data from LinkedIn. The researchers said they only examined companies with data available for at least two quarters before and after they issued RTO mandates. The researchers explained:

To collect employee turnover data, we follow prior literature ... and obtain the employment history information of over 3 million employees of the 54 RTO firms from Revelio Labs, a leading data provider that extracts information from employee LinkedIn profiles. We manually identify employees who left a firm during each period, then calculate the firm’s turnover rate by dividing the number of departing employees by the total employee headcount at the beginning of the period. We also obtain information about employees’ gender, seniority, and the number of skills listed on their individual LinkedIn profiles, which serves as a proxy for employees’ skill level.

There are limits to the study, however. The researchers noted that the study "cannot draw causal inferences based on our setting." Further, smaller firms and firms outside of the high-tech and financial industries may show different results. Although not mentioned in the report, relying on data from a social media platform could also yield inaccuracies, and the number of skills listed on a LinkedIn profile may not accurately depict a worker's skill level.

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• Amazon is delaying full RTO for some employees due to office capacity issues.
• The policy required employees to work from the office five days a week, beginning January 2.
• Amazon has encountered workspace capacity issues in the past.

Amazon is delaying the start of its strict new RTO policy for some employees because the company doesn't have enough office space in certain locations, Business Insider has learned.

The company's real estate team recently started notifying employees that they can continue following their current in-office guidance until workspaces are ready with delays stretching to as late as May, according internal Amazon notifications viewed by BI.

Impacted locations include Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, and New York, the notifications showed. An Amazon spokesperson said buildings will be ready for the majority of Amazon employees by January 2.

Earlier this year, Amazon ordered employees to start working from the office five days a week. beginning January 2. The company has said this will improve collaboration and bring other benefits. CEO Andy Jassy, in a memo announcing the mandate, said Amazon the decision to "further strengthen" its culture and teams.

Some staff were upset by the change and have argued that remote work provides more flexibility. The policy five-day-a-week policy is stricter than at some Amazon rivals and, by some accounts, stricter than Amazon's office-work policy before the pandemic.

This isn't the first time office capacity constraints have delayed Amazon's RTO plans. When the company last year ordered employees to start working in the office at least three days a week, many of its buildings weren't ready to accommodate all of those employees.

In internal guidelines viewed by BI, Amazon told employees when the new five-day RTO policy was first announced in September that they should plan to comply by January 2 whether or not they have assigned workspaces.

"For the vast majority of employees, assigned workspaces will be available by January 2, 2025," the guidance stated. "If your assigned workspace isn't ready by January 2, we still expect everyone to begin fully working from the office by that date."

Are you a tech-industry employee or someone else with insight to share?

Contact reporter Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ([email protected]). Use a nonwork device.

The United States Postal Service unveiled a plan to buy a fleet of all-electric mail trucks for its mail carriers back in 2022, of which 3,000 were supposed to be delivered by now. Unfortunately, those plans aren’t even close to fruition. The Washington Post reported that defense contractor Oshkosh has only delivered 93 vehicles so far.

In 2022, The Postal Service announced its plan to buy at least 60,000 “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” (NGDV) for its mail carriers by 2028 and start replacing its aging fleet of trucks. The Postal Service’s initial order called for 5,000 all-electric vehicles along with new, gas-powered vehicles, but calls from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Biden Administration pushed them to increase the share of NGDVs that would run on electricity.

The Washington Post obtained nearly 21,000 government and internal company records and spoke with 20 people familiar with the trucks’ manufacturing and design process. Its reporting shows that Oshkosh ran into significant manufacturing delays of the electric NGDVs that caused lower than expected delivery numbers. Some of the anonymous sources said that engineers struggled to calibrate the mail trucks’ airbags, and the vehicles’ body and internal components are unable to contain water leaks to an alarming degree.

The turnaround time for building these new mail trucks is also very slow. The Post reports that the South Carolina factory can only build one truck per day even though Oshkosh hoped it could build at least 80 vehicles a day by now.

Oshkosh also failed to inform the Postal Service about these delays. Four of the background sources say a senior company executive tried to update the Postal Service about these manufacturing issues only to have those efforts blocked by their corporate superiors.

An Oshkosh spokesperson said in a statement that the defense contractor is still “fully committed to being a strong and reliable partner” with the Postal Services and insists “we remain on track to meet all delivery deadlines,” according to The Post.

The failure of these plans doesn’t just affect the Postal Service’s ability to modernize and update its fleet of aging mail trucks. It could also throw a wrench into President Biden’s plans to combat climate change. Reuters reported on Friday that President Donald Trump’s transition team is considering cancelling the electric mail truck program altogether.