Elon Musk is attempting to reduce Twitter’s costs as much as possible to zero as his personal wealth declines, and it appears that this has included skipping rent payments at the company’s offices.
According to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord last week, Twitter owes $136,260 (£113,601) in past-due rent on its offices on the 30th floor of a building in downtown San Francisco.
On December 16, the landlord at 650 California Street, which is not Twitter’s primary office in San Francisco, gave the social media company notice that it would be in default if it did not make payment within five days. The lawsuit claims that the five days passed without payment.
The landlord, Columbia REIT 650 California LLC, is requesting the back rent in damages, in addition to attorney fees and other costs. In 2017, Twitter agreed to a seven-year lease for the facilities. In the first full year, the monthly rent was $107,526.50 (£89,646) and gradually increased to $128,397 (£107,045) in the seventh year.
An inquiry for comment from Twitter received no response. There is no longer a media relations division at the company.
In October 2022, Musk paid $44 billion (£37 billion) for Twitter, and the company will be responsible for paying the deal’s interest obligations of about $1 billion annually. Musk’s Tesla shares, which have lost more than half of their value since he acquired Twitter, are responsible for the majority of his wealth.
Since April, when he began accumulating shares of Twitter, he has sold nearly $23 billion (£19 billion) of the electric vehicle company’s stock to pay for the acquisition. According to Forbes, he has even lost his title as the richest person in the world.
In a late-night Twitter Spaces call last month, Musk defended his drastic cost-cutting measures.
“This company is like, basically, you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk said.
Twitter has reportedly fallen behind on rent at the company’s headquarters, which is located at 1355 Market Street, another San Francisco address, according to the New York Times.
Musk’s Twitter is also auctioning off upscale office furniture, kitchenware, and other artifacts from a time when the company had over 7,500 full-time employees worldwide and free lunches and other office perks were typical, in addition to not paying rent and terminating employees. According to estimates, approximately three-quarters of Twitter’s workforce quit, were fired, or were laid off.
Pizza oven, a 40-quart commercial kitchen floor mixer (retails for about $18,000; starting bid is $25), and high-end designer furniture like Knoll Diamond chairs and Herman Miller Eames chairs are some of the things Twitter is auctioning off.
Even a statue of the Twitter bird (starting bid is $25) and a neon Twitter bird light display (starting bid is $50) are up for grabs in this fire sale-style auction evoking the early 2000s dotcom bust when failed tech startups were unloading their decadent office furnishings.
