In an aerial view, a modified company sign is posted outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, April 10, 2023.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Elon Musk and X Corp. — the Musk-backed parent company of social media platform Twitter — is facing an investigation into building code violations at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Market Street, according to public records online with the county’s building inspection.
The probe, as previously reported by San Francisco Chroniclefollows a lawsuit filed May 16 in Delaware court by six former Twitter employees, who allege Musk’s “transition team” knowingly and repeatedly ordered them to violate local and federal laws, including by making unsafe modifications to the company’s office space .
The lawsuit claims under Musk’s leadership that X Corp. directed employees to turn rooms in the San Francisco headquarters into “hotel rooms,” while lying to inspectors and their landlord that they were just “temporary rest stops” with a few comfortable pieces of furniture added and no contents. or structural changes.
The lawsuit says an employee was told to place locks on the unauthorized “hotel room doors” that did not meet a California code that “requires locks that automatically disengage when the building’s fire suppression system is triggered.”
The ex-Twitter employee said in the complaint that Musk’s transition team repeatedly told them that “compatible locks were too expensive” and instead instructed them to “immediately install cheaper locks that were not compatible with life security and exit codes.”
The employee quit rather than violate that law, their lawyers noted in the lawsuit.
The complaint also alleges that Musk-led Twitter failed to pay the employees severance, back pay and benefits they were owed, and discriminated against certain senior employees based on age, gender and sexual orientation when it decided to fire them.
In addition, the lawsuit said that Musk and members of his transition team, namely Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, ordered employees involved in the management of properties to cut costs by $500 million as quickly as they could. In an effort to cut costs, the Musk transition team told employees to simply refuse to pay landlords who owed the company rent.
When informed of the risks of termination fees for certain leases, Davis told Twitter senior staff: “We just won’t pay these. We just won’t pay landlords,” adding, “we just won’t pay rent.” the complaint says.
Meanwhile, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is actively courting Musk to move Twitter headquarters to his jurisdiction. On Friday, he wrote on Twitter“let’s get them MIA asap.”
CNBC reached out to Twitter for additional information, and the company responded with an automated response that included a poop emoji but no comment.
A representative for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.
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