Twitter sued for not paying rent on San Francisco HQ since Elon Musk takeover

January 2, 2023

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.

The downsizing has already begun.

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.

a picture of the office building — Twitter’s San Francisco offices are located in the Hartford Building at 650 California St.

On Christmas Eve, Musk ordered staff out to a data center in Sacramento to shut down key servers as a cost-cutting measuring, the Times reported.

Meanwhile, layoffs have continued, with cuts to the company’s infrastructure and public policy divisions last week, the report said.

Employees have been directed to delay paying contractors or vendors — including accountants and consultants working on key regulatory projects, the Times reported.

The company is also being sued for failing to pay almost $200,000 for private charter flights made the week Musk took over.

Employees expect more layoffs to come, the report revealed.