Originally published at: Twitter sued for not paying rent at San Francisco office | Boing Boing
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It’s been said already but it’s so bananas that Musk would think the savings he gets from skipping rent payments is worth more than the hit to Twitter’s reputation for not paying rent. His chaotic behavior is personally costing him something like a billion bucks a day and this is where he’s trying to recoup savings?
$136K is a drop in the ocean compared to what Musk paid for that company. It’s probably less than he spends to go fuck off for a weekend on his private jet.
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Really, though, must we expect billionaire super-geniuses to actually pay their bills? So unfair!
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Not just the hit to the reputation. There’s going to be penalties imposed by the court and/or the contract, plus any court costs. Unless the interest is higher than that, it’s a net loss.
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It’s so obviously bananas I can’t believe Musk actually weighed it out like that. My guess is some more petty whim, like if he’s not getting the money he should from Twitter nobody else should either.
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For sure but the craziest part to me is that it’s not even a short term financial benefit for Twitter since the reputation hit is costing the company billions in real time.
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That’s abstract though. I don’t know that he’s demonstrated an ability to grasp abstract things, much less abstract things that put him in a bad light.
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It didn’t occur to me that a lawsuit would be the first means of recourse. Would it be within the owner’s rights to do stuff like change the locks and/or repossess equipment? Or are leases typically devised to prohibit such actions?
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Getting kicked out and losing your stuff is what happens if you or I don’t pay our rent. Rich people and corporations play by different rules.
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I think he knows Twitter is heading toward the end of the road. It’s reputation is already trashed. He’s probably hoping for some miracle Hail Mary pass to happen, or some white knight to step in, or maybe he’ll just walk away from the crash. Whatever happens, the rent debt won’t be his problem.
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Same in Boulder - Attorney: Twitter owes nearly $200K in rent at Walnut Street offices in Boulder – Boulder Daily Camera
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No doubt the landlord sent multiple warnings. And while they may have a right to take Twitter’s assets, (a) that’s a long legal process in itself, and (b) they don’t want the assets; they want the money they are owed. If they repossess a bunch of computers and office furniture and whatnot, converting those into cash is yet another complicated, time-consuming process that will end up costing them more money.
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Likewise I’m sure they’d also prefer not to have to evict Twitter and find a new tenant if they don’t have to. There are a lot of office building vacancies in San Francisco right now. Like you said, they just want to get paid.
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In SF (and I think CA in general) “self service” evictions are illegal. So a landlord would need to file with the court, and the court would issue an eviction order that the police would then carry out. Alternately the court could issue a “quit or cure” order (basically a “if you pay up before the police come kick you out you can stay” order).
So in theory the same rules that are at play here so far, the landlord needs to get the court involved, they don’t get to change the locks and sell off Twitter’s stuff. In practice I think commercial leases more frequently get “quit or core” orders then straight up evictions, and in practice more companies file for chapter 11 bankruptcy and get to write off large amounts of back rent while individuals very rarely manage that kind of thing. On the other hand individual home owners have some resources that corporations seldom use (underwater sales in single action states let home owners unload property without a bankruptcy).
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Dazzling hubris. Did he think the landlords would just blow off the rent for the honor of having an Elon Musk company in the building? Or did he just fire all the bookkeepers.
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In Arizona anyhow, a residential landlord will typically send a 5-day notice when the rent goes overdue. Usually the tenant will get the 5 day notice on the 6th of the month. On the 11th, landlord files in court. Court date might be the 20th and court might give tenants 10 days to vacate. So on day 30 the constable (an elected position) will show up with a locksmith and a cop and give you an hour to get your stuff.
To avoid court/attorney costs and the possibility of the place getting trashed, I’ll happily give the evictee $300 in exchange for them vacating and giving me the keys.
Constables are great. A friend of mine didn’t get her deposit back and in the end, the constable broke into the rental management office on a Saturday and confiscated their computers and auctioned them off so they could pay my friend.
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I’m guessing this is his strategy to renegotiate all of Twitter’s office leases. Either that or he fired the finance team months ago and forgot to put someone in charge of writing rent checks!
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Definitely B. My money is on nobody planned this. It just happened due to sheer incompetence.
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