Twitter has not paid rent on its California headquarters in San Francisco since billionaire Elon Musk took over the company in October, according to a new lawsuit filed last Thursday.
Musk has found himself in hot water since his takeover of the social media platform, as the company’s cost-cutting and downsizing under his watch have left thousands laid off and contractors unpaid. Landlord Columbia Property Trust said the unpaid rent totals $136,260.
Musk has credited a massive drop in revenue as the reason for the cost-cutting measures and mass layoffs. After initially attempting to terminate the agreed $44 billion buyout in July, the purchase was finalized in October.
Twitter under Elon Musk
Aside from the mass layoffs and downsizing, Musk has created a stir for his handling of Twitter’s content moderation policy – and for sometimes echoing conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric that previous Twitter owners worked to dismantle.
Musk has repeated unfounded claims that Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul knew who his attacker was in November and has had Twitter spats with the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among other prominent figures.
Amid an exodus of prominent Twitter accounts from the platform since Musk took ownership, such as CBS News, Musk oversaw a series of controversies regarding his implementation of new policies – namely Twitter Blue, which was meant to be a premium version of the platform but has since been shelved indefinitely.
In December, Musk decided to eventually step down as Twitter CEO as soon as he names a replacement via a Twitter poll. More than half (57.5%) of the roughly 17.5 million respondents voted "yes" in the poll, though he added that he will undergo an extensive search for a new CEO because – in his own words – "no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive."