Twitter has stopped paying office rent, considers not paying severance to fired employees: Report

As Elon Musk moves to make Twitter profitable, the Tesla CEO is reportedly implementing several new cost-cutting measures. A New York Times report said the Twitter boss has instructed employees to not pay vendors or even pay the rent for any of its offices including its headquarters in San Francisco. 

This comes as the company faces potential lawsuits and has also recently fired nearly half of its workforce. The report citing a New Hampshire lawsuit also claims that Musk has not paid the rent for the headquarters or its several global offices in weeks and is attempting to negotiate the terms of its lease agreements. 

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Meanwhile, the US-based company is also considering not paying severance to the thousands of employees who were fired and promised they would get three months’ pay and one month of severance. Reportedly, there were discussions about the possibility of not paying severance at all as well as the consequences which could invite more lawsuits by the former employees. 

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” Musk had said at the time of the mass layoffs. The company had slashed its over 7,000 employee workforce to nearly 2,000. 

The NYT also speculates that these cost-cutting measures could be a bid to save money as the company prepared for multiple legal battles, which reportedly include an investigation from the US Federal Trade Commission and a potential class-action lawsuit from former employees. 

Additionally, the report also claims that the company has also refused to pay for the private flights, amounting to nearly $200,000, in October, when Musk was in the midst of the takeover. This comes after Twitter has also moved to auction some office supplies including the statue of the company’s famous blue bird, furniture, coffee machines, and so on. 

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