Elon's Twitter SUED After Refusing to Pay Rent on San Fran HQ
Elon Musk has long been an eccentric and controversial business force, but his costly takeover of social media platform Twitter has been a less than savory experience for the billionaire.
Musk, who purchased the app after a lengthy legal battle for $44 billion, almost immediately began suggesting that the platform was facing bankruptcy, laying off staffers left and right to shed the fiscal weight.
The Tesla CEO even went so far as to fire the janitorial staff at one of Twitter’s office buildings, forcing employees to complain of overflowing trash receptacles and ever-more-disgusting restrooms.
Now, in a shocking new revelation, it appears as though Twitter has simply stopped paying rent on their offices in San Francisco.
Twitter is being sued by its landlord for ducking out on rent for its downtown San Francisco headquarters, where the platform reportedly went through heavy cost-cutting under new CEO Elon Musk.
The company owes $136,260 in unpaid rent, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday by Columbia Property Trust.
Twitter’s freeloading was reported early last month by the New York Times, which wrote Musk and his advisers hoped to renegotiate terms of lease agreements after mass layoffs.
Musk’s plans to make Twitter profitable have already seen some offices shuttered entirely.
Twitter closed its Seattle offices, the Times reported Friday, cutting janitorial and security services. Remaining employees were left to bring their own toilet paper to work, according to the report.
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October and has been cutting costs ever since, amid what Musk admitted was a “massive drop” in revenue.
Cleaning and security staff were also laid off from the company’s New York and San Francisco offices, where workers struck for higher pay. In San Francisco, Musk condensed the company’s footprint at 650 California St. from four floors to two, the Times reported.
The Twitter trouble has been contagious, as well, with Tesla stock losing value at a dramatic rate in 2022 after Musk’s management of the social media site began making headlines.
