Billionaire Elon Musk’s rental crisis at Twitter
It seems even the world’s richest people can get caught up in a rental crisis, with Elon Musk forced to come up with a creative solution to solve a conflict with Twitter’s landlord.
It’s often hard to know what’s real, what’s not so real or what’s satire in Musk’s world but he seems serious about wanting to change Twitter’s name to Titter, at least on the company’s building signage at its HQ in San Francisco.
Musk wanted to remove Twitter’s sign hanging above the street to do so but according to his agreement with his landlord, it wasn’t that simple.
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“They tried to muffle our titter,” Musk posted on the social media platform he bought for $US44 billion ($A66.2bn) in October
So the billionaire had to take alternative measures if he wanted to make that happen.
“Our landlord at SF HQ says we’re legally required to keep sign as Twitter & cannot remove “w”, so we painted it background color. Problem solved!” he wrote.
It’s not the first time Musk and his San Francisco landlord have butted heads.
In January, Twitter HQ’s landlord escalated a lawsuit against Elon Musk for alleged $US3.4m in unpaid rent.
According to Fox News, the building’s owner, SRI Nine Market Square LLC, alleged that Musk failed to pay $3.4 million in rent for December and then again in January, though the landlord was able to secure some of the funds through Twitter’s letter of credit.
The LLC’s complaint claimed that Twitter was beholden to rent for eight floors in the 1335 Market St. building. Twitter was reportedly shrinking its office footprint in the building down to just two floors in early January, however.
The outcome of that lawsuit is yet to be reported, with some talk it could take years to settle.
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