In an aerial view, a modified company sign is placed on the outside of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, April 10, 2023.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Elon Musk and X Corp. – Musk-backed parent company of social media platform Twitter – investigation into building code violations at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Market Street, according to Online public records With the provincial building inspection department.
The investigation, previously reported by San Francisco Chroniclefollowing a lawsuit filed May 16 in a Delaware court by six former Twitter employees, who allege Musk’s “transition team” knowingly and repeatedly ordered them to break local and federal laws, including by making unsafe modifications to their desk. company.
Under Musk, the lawsuit alleges that X Corp directed employees to turn rooms in the San Francisco headquarters office into “hotel rooms,” while the inspectors and their owner lied that they were just “temporary resting places” with the addition of some comfortable furniture and nothing of substance. . or structural changes.
The lawsuit says an employee was required to place locks on unauthorized “hotel room” doors that did not meet a California law that “requires locks that automatically disengage when a building’s fire suppression systems are operating.”
The former Twitter employee said in the complaint that Musk’s transition team repeatedly told them that “compliant locks are expensive” and instead asked them to “immediately install cheaper locks that do not comply with the life and exit safety codes.”
Their attorneys indicated in the lawsuit that the employee resigned rather than break this law.
The complaint also alleges that Twitter, led by Musk, failed to pay employees severance pay, back wages and benefits owed to them, and discriminated against some senior employees on the basis of age, gender and sexual orientation when it decided to terminate them.
In addition, the lawsuit said that Musk and members of his transition team, namely The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, ordered employees involved in managing the estate to cut costs by $500 million as quickly as possible. In an effort to cut costs, Musk’s transition team simply asked employees to refuse to pay rent to landlords the company owed.
When informed of the dangers of specific lease termination fees, Davis told his senior Twitter staff, “Well, we’re not going to pay that fee. We’re not going to pay landlords,” adding, “We’re not going to pay rent.” says the complaint.
Meanwhile, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is actively courting Musk to move Twitter’s headquarters into his jurisdiction. Friday, wrote on Twitter“Let’s take them to the Museum of Islamic Art as soon as possible.”
CNBC reached out to Twitter for more information and the company responded with an automated response that included a poop emoji but no comment.
A representative from the San Francisco Building Inspection Department did not immediately respond to a request for more information.