Following his shrinking personal wealth, Elon Musk tried to cut costs on Twitter. Previously, Musk was also caught in arrears with the company's office rent payments. Later, it was even discovered that Musk had auctioned off furniture.
Twitter owes around Rp 2.1 billion for office leases that are due. The office is located in a 30th-floor building in downtown San Francisco, according to a lawsuit filed by the building's owner, last week.
The owner at 650 California St., which is not Twitter's main headquarters in San Francisco, gave the social media company a warning on Dec. 16. The plaintiff claimed that it would be the default if it did not pay within five days. "Five days passed without payment, according to the lawsuit," as quoted from the AP page, Wednesday (4/1/2023).
The owner, Columbia REIT 650 California LLC, is seeking rent damages as well as attorneys' and other costs. Twitter signed a seven-year lease for the office in 2017.
In addition to not paying rent and laying off Twitter workers when acquired, Musk also auctioned off expensive office furniture, kitchen utensils, and other items owned when Twitter had more than 7,500 full-time workers worldwide, providing free lunches and providing benefits.
About three-quarters of Twitter's employee base is estimated to have left the company, either due to being laid off, fired, or leaving.
Among the items Twitter auctioned off was a pizza oven, a 40-liter commercial kitchen floor mixer that sold for about 18 thousand U.S. dollars. There are also high-end designer furniture such as Herman Miller's Eames chair and Knoll Diamond chairs sold for thousands of US dollars. Even Twitter bird sculptures and neon Twitter bird light displays can be contested in an auction.