Report: Elon Musk Continues Relentless Cost-Cutting at Twitter – Including Not Paying Rent

Since Elon Musk’s takeover, many cost-cutting measures have been implemented at Twitter. Now, a recent report claims that the company is no longer paying rent on its San Francisco offices and is considering not paying severance to certain former employees.

The New York Times reports that Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk appears to be preparing for a legal battle, according to seven sources with internal knowledge of the situation. Musk has reportedly re-arranged Twitter’s legal department and pushed out one of his closest advisers, Alex Spiro. Employees have also reportedly been instructed to not pay vendors in anticipation of potential litigation.

Twitter has also not been paying rent on its San Francisco headquarters for weeks in an effort to cut costs, sources said. According to a lawsuit filed in New Hampshire District Court, Twitter has also allegedly refused to pay a $197,725 bill for private charter flights made the week of Musk’s takeover.

Twitter leadership has also reportedly been discussing the consequences of not paying severance to thousands of the employees it has laid off since the takeover. In an internal email sent last Friday, Musk also allegedly threatened employees with lawsuits if they talk to the media and “act in a manner contrary to the company’s interest.”

The move shows that Musk is still attempting to cut costs and is altering previous agreements and promises to do so. In October, Musk fired both Twitter’s chief legal offices and general counsel “for cause” and installed his personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, as head of legal and policy at the company.

Sources now say that Spiro is no longer working at the firm and that Musk has been unhappy with decisions made by Spiro. One of these decisions was to retain Twitter deputy general counsel James A. Baker, who previously served as general counsel at the FBI until May 2018 and joined Twitter in 2020.

Last week, Musk said that he terminated Baker after learning that the lawyer was responsible for reviewing internal communications about the company’s decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.

In an attempt to fill the company’s legal teams, Musk has been calling on lawyers from his other companies, such as SpaceX, to fill certain roles. More than half a dozen lawyers from SpaceX have reportedly been given access to Twitter’s internal systems. Breitbart News previously reported on Musk pulling in employees from his other companies to work at Twitter.

Since his takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk has reportedly enlisted more than 50 of his most trusted Tesla employees to help in his restructuring of the social media platform.

NBC News reports that with Elon Musk in the process of taking over social media platform Twitter, the Tesla CEO has reportedly enlisted more than 50 of his trusted Tesla employees to assist in the restructuring of the notoriously left-wing company.

Breitbart News previously reported that members of Elon Musk’s inner circle worked with Twitter’s remaining executives over the weekend to detail how the site will approach content moderation as well as plans to lay off 25 percent of the workforce. Alex Spiro, a celebrity lawyer who has represented Musk for many years, was reportedly leading these conversations.

Read more at the New York Times here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan