Twitter office space X

The BBC has been given photos of Twitter office space X that has been converted into bedrooms, which San Francisco authorities are probing as a possible building code violation.

One image shows a room with a double bed, including a wardrobe and slippers.

An ex-worker said new Twitter boss Elon Musk has been staying at the headquarters since he bought the firm.

He last month emailed all Twitter staff saying they “will need to be extremely hardcore” to succeed.
San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection has confirmed it is investigating potential violations following a complaint.

Mr Musk said the city was attacking companies for providing beds to “tired employees”.

In a now-deleted tweet, Mr Musk posted that he would work and sleep in the office “until the org is fixed”.

The BBC has also been given pictures of sofas at Twitter being used as beds.

Another conference room has an alarm clock, and a picture placed over a made-up bed.

Before the Elon fanboys swarm it is the usual point to remind everyone that Elon is not “Tony Stark”.

He hasn’t invented anything, he bought Tesla out with a hostile takeover and SpaceX was set up by Nasa engineers. The guy is just an investor, not some genius inventor. An investor of his parents’ money of dubious origin.

He also didn’t found PayPal; his own company (x.com) merged with PayPal, and he got a huge payout. He wasn’t responsible for any innovations there, either.

He’s also not a genius. He lied about his physics degree; he has none. He has a “business degree” which his investors paid for to stop him from being deported – his US visa needed him to have skill points via a degree.

In a reply to a journalist on Twitter, Mr Musk posted that the city should prioritise protecting children from the consequences of opioid drug misuse.

Office armchairs

Forbes broke the story of “sad little conference-room sleeping quarters at the company’s recently depopulated headquarters”, noting it was an apparent improvement on the improvised sleeping-bag-on-the-floor arrangement posted on Twitter by one employee.

The bedrooms, Bloomberg reported, are also said to accommodate staff from Tesla and other Musk-owned businesses brought in to work at Twitter, “some of whom travel to Twitter for work meetings”, sources told the publication.

Department of Building Inspection official Patrick Hannan told the San Francisco Chronicle it investigated all complaints and there were different rules for residential buildings, even those used for short-term stays.

In May 2020, before Mr Musk’s takeover, Twitter told employees they could work from home “forever” if they so wished because its remote-working measures during Covid lockdowns had been a success.

Twitter hasn’t paid rent on its office spaces

In an effort to cut costs following Elon Musk’s chaotic $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the social media company has stopped paying rent.

Twitter has not paid rent for its global offices or San Francisco headquarters in weeks, the report said, as Musk’s team has been trying to renegotiate the terms of the company’s lease. As a result, Twitter has received complaints from real estate firms like Shorenstein, which owns Twitter’s San Francisco buildings.

Representatives for Shorenstein and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter no longer has a communications department.

Musk said Twitter suffered a “massive drop in revenue” in the days following his $44 billion acquisition of the company. Without providing any figures or evidence, he claimed in a tweet that the revenue drop was the result of activist groups putting pressure on advertisers.

Though many companies did pause advertising on Twitter, some major advertising giants like Apple and Amazon have resumed spending on the platform.

Musk has also revamped Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, with the hope of generating fresh revenue for the company. The service launched Monday after Musk pulled and delayed the launch in November.

Twitter Blue costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iOS users who purchase it through Apple’s App Store. The $3 iOS price difference reflects Musk’s recent gripes about Apple’s 30% cut of all digital sales made through apps.

Subscribers with a verified phone number will receive a blue checkmark once their account is reviewed and approved, Twitter said in a tweet Saturday. Blue users will also be able to edit tweets and get early access to new features. The company says Blue subscribers will “soon” see fewer ads, have the option to post longer videos and will appear at the top of replies and mentions.

Musk has been a vocal critic of Twitter’s previous system, which granted verification to notable users like politicians, executives, members of the press and organizations to signal their legitimacy. He said the new verification system will be “the great leveler” and give “power to the people.”

Elon Musk reinstated the Twitter accounts of several journalists that were suspended for a day over a controversy on publishing public data about the billionaire’s X plane.