Twitter skipping rent on San Francisco HQ, selling office equipment as Musk cuts costs: reports

Twitter has been skipping rent payments on its San Francisco headquarters and putting up office supplies for auction under new CEO Elon Musk as the social media company looks to strengthen its financial position, reports said.

Twitter hasn’t paid rent on its San Francisco location or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company told the New York Times.

Musk and his advisors are hoping to renegotiate the terms of lease agreements due to their smaller worker force after mass layoffs, the paper said.

The move was just one of the cost-cutting measures by Musk after he paid $44 billion for the social media company in October.

In early November, Musk admitted Twitter had seen a “massive drop” in revenue.

The company is also refusing to pony up to a nearly $200,000 bill for private charter flights made the week that Musk took over, the Times reported, according to a copy of a lawsuit filed in New Hampshire.

Musk’s team is also considering what could happen if the company didn’t follow through on paying severance to the thousands of people laid off from Twitter since Musk came aboard, sources told the Times.

About 7,500 staffers worked at the site before Musk started slashing about half its workforce.

Originally, Musk decided the company would dole out at least two months of pay and another month of severance pay to US-based workers in line with federal and state labor laws, but now Musk’s team is discussing whether it should pay some of those months, the Times reported, citing two sources.

Many former employees are still waiting for paperwork that formalizes their departure from Twitter, five people told the Times.

Twitter is also reportedly putting up industrial-grade kitchen equipment, office supplies and electronics from its San Francisco office up for sale.

Some of the items listed include a 41-inch high Twitter bird statue, a sculpture planter, chairs, projectors, televisions, desks and espresso machines, according to the listing from Heritage Global Partners.

The San Diego-based company, which is handling the auction, placed the details of the sell-off over the weekend with bids that will start being accepted in January, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

A rep for Heritage Global Partners told Fortune that the auction had nothing to do with Twitter’s financial health.

“They’ve sold for 44 billion, and we’re selling a couple of chairs and desks and computers. So if anyone genuinely thinks that the revenue from selling a couple computers and chairs will pay for the mountain there, then they’re a moron,” Nick Dove, of HGP, told the outlet.