Twitter sued for rent non-payment
One of Twitter's landlords has sued the company for failing to pay rent on its office space in San Francisco - a short-term cost-saving measure brought in by new owner Elon Musk.
The landlord, Columbia Reit - 650 California LLC, filed the lawsuit filed last week in state court in San Francisco. The firm alleging that Twitter is refusing to pay rent of $136,260 for its office space located on the 30th floor of the Hartford Building.
Columbia Reit told Twitter the firm would be in breach of its contract if the rent wasn't paid, to no effect.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Twitter hadn't paid rent on its San Francisco headquarters, or any of its other global offices, in weeks, adding that Musk and his advisors intended to renegotiate lease agreements after a wave of layoffs.
A private jet firm also filed a lawsuit against Twitter last month after the firm refused to pay nearly $200,000 for two charter trips taken in October. Leslie Berland, Twitter's former chief marketing officer who took the flights, was let go in November along with hundreds of other employees.
Elon Musk has kicked off wide-ranging cost-cutting measures since acquiring Twitter in late October, including mass layoffs and slashing staff perks like free meals and work trips.
The company has also come under fire for converting several of the conference rooms at its San Francisco headquarters into bedrooms for workers to sleep on-site. According to several former Twitter workers quoted by the BBC, Musk has been staying and sleeping at the offices since he purchased the company,
California state legislator Scott Wiener told the BBC shortly after the 'bedroom' report surfaced that Musk "is now making them [workers] sleep at Twitter."
"It's clear that he doesn't really care about people. He doesn't care about the people who work for him."
San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection said last month it was looking into potential code violations, following a complaint.
Last month, Musk announced he would step down as Twitter CEO after users voted for the billionaire to resign as head of the company.
After the voting was over, Musk said he would comply with users' wishes "as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job". More than 57% of a total of 17.5 million Twitter users voted for him to resign in a poll he began.
Musk said he would still lead the servers and software team, even with a new CEO in place, although at the moment there have been no whisperings of a new leader for the firm.