A $35,000 neon Twitter bird, anyone? How about a used industrial kitchen mixer at a good price? Once there….
When Elon Musk wants to say something, it can be pretty blunt. The day he took over Twitter last fall, he walked into the company’s San Francisco headquarters with a sink. He tweeted, “Let that sink in.” Got it?
After the company’s workforce was cut and rent and contract obligations fell behind, Twitter under the leapfrog billionaire is now auctioning off memorabilia, chic office furniture and professional kitchen appliances from its San Francisco offices, where vast swathes now stand empty and free meals are a relic the past.
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With the auction, Musk has a twofold message: draw attention to the perceived excesses of the previous Twitter administration, while signaling that cutting costs _ at all costs _ is a top priority.
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Alongside the neon bird, the items that bid the highest bids include a plain Twitter bird statue for over $30,000 and a planter sculpture of the “? Symbol. Professional kitchen appliances now cost tens of thousands of dollars. These include a commercial dehydrator, deep fryer and semi-automatic espresso maker from La Marzocco Strada, which retails for around $25,000 (top bid Wednesday morning was $12,000).
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Even when it all adds up, the money from the auction, which ends Wednesday, is unlikely to impact Twitter’s financial commitments.
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Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, and the company has to pay about $1 billion annually in interest payments from the deal. Most of Musk’s wealth is tied to his ownership of Tesla stock, which has lost more than 40% of its value since he took over Twitter in late October. Since April, when he began taking a position at Twitter, he sold nearly $23 billion worth of stock in the electric vehicle company to fund the purchase. He even lost the top spot for the richest person in the world, according to Forbes.
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Twitter, which no longer has a press department, did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Wednesday.
Musk defended his extreme cost-cutting measures in a late-night Twitter Spaces call in December.
“This company is basically like you’re on a plane that’s going to land at high speed with its engines on fire and the controls aren’t working,” Musk said Dec. 21.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
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