Twitter has stopped paying rent on offices and is considering not paying severance packages to forme

[RandySF]

SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past two weeks, Elon Musk has shaken up Twitter’s legal department, disbanded a council that advised the social media company on safety issues and is continuing to take drastic steps to cut costs.

Mr. Musk appears to be gearing up for legal battles at Twitter, which he purchased in October for $44 billion, according to seven people familiar with internal conversations. He and his team have revamped Twitter’s legal department and pushed out one of his closest advisers in the process. They have also instructed employees to not pay vendors in anticipation of potential litigation, the people said.

To cut costs, Twitter has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company said. Twitter has also refused to pay a $197,725 bill for private charter flights made the week of Mr. Musk’s takeover, according to a copy of a lawsuit filed in New Hampshire District Court and obtained by The New York Times.

Twitter’s leaders have also discussed the consequences of denying severance payments to thousands of people who have been laid off since the takeover, two people familiar with the talks said. And Mr. Musk has threatened employees with lawsuits if they talk to the media and “act in a manner contrary to the company’s interest,” according to an internal email sent last Friday.




https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/technology/elon-musk-twitter-shakeup.html

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

https://archive.ph/41CKR

[VMA131Marine]

2. If you're a billionaire, they let you get away with it ...

Apparently 🙄

[Pobeka]

3. Not paying rent or severance is *not* cost-cutting, it's theft of what is owed to others.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. Change the locks. Evicting a commercial tenant is way easier than evicting a homeowner

[crickets]

8. 👆👆

[CentralMass]

4. I'm suprized more people and companies have not left.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Shut down their servers. Nt

[louis-t]

7. It's how some of the wealthiest pad their bottom lines.

Don't pay the little guy, throw out pensions, slow pay the rent, slow pay the loans, slow pay the utilities.

[Emrys]

9. I'm self-employed as a subcontractor.

If I heard this about any of our clients, I'd be chasing them for any unpaid invoices like a hawk and I'd do no more work for them until things straightened out or their firm went *poof*.

I've had two clients go into receivership over the years: one which didn't owe us anything when it went bust because I'd plagued their accounts department when payments slowed down, which was a big warning sign, and another that caught its staff and all its subcontractors by surprise, and the fallout from that is still being ground through more than three years later.

[3catwoman3]

10. Whyever did Musk want to buy Twitter?

$44 billion seems a hell of a lot of money to pay for something, only to destroy it.

I don’t use Twitter, so am quite out of the loop.

[Initech]

11. To deliberately and intentionally destroy it.

He was definitely brainwashed by right wing propaganda, Fox, and conspiracy theories. He heard the bullshit theories about Section 230 and "shadow banning" (whatever that is) and decided that if right wing shitheads and propagandists can't be on it, then we can't have nice things.

[Whiskeytide]

16. I think Тяцмp did not return to Twitter ...

… because the plan all along was to destroy it.

Тяцмp also benefits by eliminating the leading social media platform, leaving his Truth Social with at least a little more strength in the market. This seems like it was a gamed out strategy from the get go. I can’t think of another explanation for Mullosk’s actions.

[riversedge]

12. So, Musk has decided not to pay his bills. whow. I say toss him in jail until he pays up!! But

of course no one listens.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

13. Musk would make a perfect Republican....

Oh wait...........

Traditional billionaire behavior - - if something doesn't behave to support conservative beliefs, then just buy it and then recast it into your wingnut image......

Reminds me of what they've done to many TV and radio stations as well as newspapers.

[patphil]

14. Not paying vendors will shut down Tesla production very quickly.

And not paying rent will violate lease agreements, eventually resulting in eviction.
Failure to pay severance will make it hard to attract new employees; something they will eventually need.
It will also encourage current staff to shop around for new jobs.

Outside of burning down their factories, I can't think of much more Muskie could do to destroy Tesla.

[Kennah]

15. I didn't see a reference to their data centers. Do they own them or rent them?

If they lose the data center, they are done.