Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 and promised big changes. He said free speech was back; he said censorship and persecution of conservatives and alternative voices would end.
While he has reinstated many banned accounts and made a stand in some ways, Musk has also disappointed many with various missteps.
For one thing, he’s fired much staff and left the company shorthanded. For another, Twitter is now being sued for not paying rent. Yes, literally.
Twitter Owes $136,250 in Rent
Twitter owes $136,250 in past rent for its rental properties in San Francisco. Reportedly, the corporation hasn’t paid in weeks, not only in San Francisco, but at various offices it owns globally.
Twitter already downsized its SF offices to only two floors, instead of the previous four, and it has also apparently been shirking on cleaning these offices.
Twitter is in the process of being kicked out of various of its global locations for similar reasons of failing to pay rent, according to reports from Bloomberg Business outlet.
These problems seem to just keep getting worse for Twitter. While it’s true that Musk definitely overpaid for the company based on its actual value, he is one of the richest men in the world.
This seems like something he should have thought of before. It’s hard for a company to operate globally without having physical locations that are cared for in some way.
Twitter sued for not paying San Francisco office rent https://t.co/zusaek42Bc pic.twitter.com/4qjnW2pHVs
— Engadget (@engadget) January 1, 2023
What’s in the Lawsuit?
According to the SF office owner Columbia Reit, Twitter failed to evict themselves from the property on Dec. 16 after failing to pay the required rent.
In other words, the lawsuit specifically alleges Twitter is now squatting in property that does not belong to it and for which it has not paid rent. This is a fairly serious accusation, especially for a global, multi-billion dollar company that raked in approximately $5 billion in 2021.
Do they truly not have the money to pay the rent in their offices or is this some kind of strategy from Musk?
The lawsuit further alleges that Twitter’s offices on California Street in the financial area of SF are unpaid and should have been vacated by mid-December. The headquarters of Twitter are elsewhere in SF on Market Street.
Musk is also being accused (but not yet sued) of not paying rent in Seattle and New York for Twitter’s offices.
Twitter was accused of not paying its rent in a lawsuit filed by the landlord for one of its offices in San Francisco. https://t.co/iDezNX2p6V
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 2, 2023
It Gets Worse…
Unfortunately, the accusations against Twitter get even worse.
Apparently, Musk is also not paying many of the expenses that he incurred at Twitter, including the $197,725 cost of private jets he took in the early days after buying Twitter.
Pro-tip: don’t take a private jet if you can’t pay for it because they cost a lot of money! This is all very bad news for Twitter. We will keep watching this lawsuit and see what happens with it going forward.
This article appeared in StatesmanPost and has been published here with permission.
