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Twitter headquarters: The lawsuit involves another building in San Francisco
Photo: CONSTANZA HEVIA / AFP
Twitter apparently failed to pay the landlord of one of its San Francisco offices $136,260 in rent on time.
This suggests a lawsuit filed by the company concerned, Columbia Reit – 650 California LLC, in the competent Superior Court last Thursday.
According to the document, the dispute is not about Twitter's headquarters, but about another company presence in the so-called Hartford Building.
Twitter is on the 30th floor, and a seven-year lease was signed in 2017.
Since Elon Musk took over the short message service in the fall, there hasn't just been a big wave of layoffs.
The company is also taking drastic cost-cutting measures, which are said to go so far that some employees are now bringing their own toilet paper to work (more on this here).
According to media reports, the at least temporary withholding of rents is part of this savings strategy.
Open invoices also for flights
The New York Times reported in mid-December, citing insiders, that Twitter had allegedly not paid rent for its headquarters or other offices for weeks.
According to the report, the tech firm is also refusing to pay a $197,725 bill for two private charter flights operated during the week of Elon Musk's takeover.
In this case, too, Twitter was recently sued by the flight operator.
As for the rent arrears, the newspaper learned from its whistleblowers that Elon Musk's team is speculating that as the company downsizes, it will be able to renegotiate the terms of its leases.
According to the report, Twitter had already received complaints from real estate investment and management companies at the time.
Various media such as Bloomberg have asked Twitter for a statement on the lawsuit that has now become public.
The company itself has not yet commented on the subject.
No wonder: the communications department also fell victim to the job cuts.
mbo