Twitter was sued by the Crown Estate for forgetting to pay rent at its London office and a landlord in the US for also falling behind on rent for its San Francisco headquarters. The Crown Estate — which manages a range of assets from shops and offices to the seabed of England that the British monarch ultimately owns — filed a suit against Twitter over its London beliefs in the West End, according to tribunal filings. No other piece was open, and a spokesperson for the Crown Estate declined to remark beyond confirming the suit. Meanwhile, in the US, Twitter quit spending rent on its San Francisco headquarters in December, according to a lawsuit by its landlord Sri Nine Market Square LLC.
The social media business failed to pay the $3.36 million December rent for its headquarters at 1355 Market Street and the $3.42 million for January rent, the case, filed on Monday in state court in California, shows. Musk is meeting his first payment on the $12.5 billion in deficit he took on to develop Twitter.
More landlords are bringing Twitter to court over outstanding rent at the social media company’s office in San Francisco and its British posts — the most delinquent legal headaches for billionaire owner Elon Musk, who has been attempting to slash expenses.
According to California court documents, Twitter is facing a lawsuit over allegations it failed to spend rent for its head office. Meanwhile, the owner of its premises in central London said it’s taking the company to tribunal over rental debt.
Musk is making drastic cost cuts after his $ 44 billion sale last year to buy Twitter left the company on the theme for about USD 1 billion a year in welfare payments.
This month, Twitter has already taken to court for falling back on rent at another San Francisco office. It comes as Musk has been swearing in recent days in a different class-action lawsuit from Tesla investors alleging his 2017 tweet deceived them about the budget to take the electric carmaker private.
The Tesla CEO’s cost-cutting plan for Twitter also has included gutting the company’s crew and auctioning off memorabilia and fancy office table. Twitter did not respond to a demand for comment, and its communications department shut down after Musk’s acquisition. The owner of Twitter’s San Francisco center, located at 1355 Market St., is suing the group after it forgot to complete its latest monthly rent payment, according to papers filed Friday with the Superior Court of California.
The group, Sri Nine Market Square LLC, said Twitter “breached the Lease by forgetting to deliver monthly rent and different rent” for January, amounting to $3.4 million. Twitter, which has had a lease for three feet in the facility since 2011, had fallen behind on a comparable rent in December, which Sri Nine Market Square recouped from a note of praise that Twitter had put up as a safety deposit, the filing said.
After using those funds, the owner says Twitter still owes $3.16 million in unpaid rent and seeks late fees, interest, and attorneys’ fees. The social media company still inhabits the property, the landlord said.
In Britain, the Crown Estate has begun court proceedings against Twitter after the group fell rearward on rent at its offices near Piccadilly Circus in central London. A spokeswoman for the Crown Estate, which owns some of the priciest real estates in central London, said it took action following the last contact with Twitter over the unpaid rent and is in talks with the company but provided no further information. The Crown Estate is a vast property portfolio that includes much of London’s Regent Street and the Windsor estate.
