Twitter sued for not paying rent on San Francisco HQ since Elon Musk’s takeover
The landlord is suing Twitter for failure to pay rent at its downtown San Francisco headquarters, where the company is said to have cut costs significantly under new CEO Elon Musk, who is also named in the lawsuit. The complaint filed by Columbia Property Trust on Thursday alleges that the corporation has failed to pay rent totaling $136,260. The New York Times revealed Twitter’s freeloading at the beginning of this month, writing that Musk and his advisors wanted to renegotiate conditions of leasing agreements amid widespread layoffs.
The Times claimed on Friday that Twitter has shut down its Seattle operations, eliminating jobs such as housekeeping and security staff. The remaining staff reportedly had to bring their own toilet paper to the office. After Elon Musk’s “huge reduction” in sales after purchasing Twitter in October for $44 billion, the company has been slashing expenditures ever since. The corporation also had to lay off cleaning and security staff in New York and San Francisco after workers there went on strike for higher pay. According to The New York Times, Musk reduced the size of the company’s headquarters from four to two floors at 650 California St. in San Francisco.
According to the Times, on Christmas Eve, Musk had employees at a data center in Sacramento shut down important servers in an effort to reduce costs. Meanwhile, the article claims that the company’s infrastructure and public policy departments both experienced layoffs last week. According to The New York Times, employees have been told to hold off on paying contractors and vendors, including accountants and consultants working on critical regulatory tasks.
Almost $200,000 in private charter flights were booked the week Musk took over, and the corporation has yet to pay for them. The report found that workers anticipate further layoffs. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on the most recent case.