Once again, a lawsuit claims that the second richest man in the world doesn’t believe the rules apply to him.
Elon Musk said Twitter would only pay the rent for its San Francisco headquarters “more [his] corpse,” according to an explosive complaint filed against him and the San Francisco, Delaware-based social media company by six former employees. The lawsuit outlines a myriad of allegations against Musk and his Twitter transition team, writing that they violated city codes to relocate parts of Twitter’s headquarters. In San Francisco to bedrooms, break promises to fire employees, willfully break vendor contracts, and try to force employees to damage their reputation.
It also invokes the alleged collusion of Musk’s inner circle on Twitter, including Steve Davis, CEO of The Boring Company and partner Nicole Hollander, venture capitalist Pablo Mendoza, and attorney Alex Spiro. According to the lawsuit, Davis and Hollander directed an employee to violate licensing rules and avoid writing details about code-breaking renewals at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
In one alleged incident, Davis told the employee not to bother getting permits or a plumber licensed for a new bathroom by Musk’s office, adding that the department had no interest in following the standards of the lease, city, California, or any other authority.
On Dec. 9, according to the lawsuit, Mendoza said Musk had determined that Twitter would stop paying rent worldwide. Spiro, who has represented Jay-Z, Alec Baldwin, Megan Thee Stallion and Robert Kraft in the past, claimed it was unreasonable for Twitter’s landlords to expect the company to pay rent because San Francisco was a “loophole.”
The lawsuit also contains new details in the Twitter “hotel rooms” saga, from the perspective of plaintiff Joseph Killian, a 10-year Twitter veteran who led the company’s office construction and designs until the relocation team forced him into ethical quandaries.
When word first leaked out that Twitter had installed beds at its headquarters in early December, the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection opened an investigation into the converted offices. City inspectors arrived and, according to the suit, said, “This is just furniture! We were expecting more radical changes.” According to the Building Inspection Department, a site visit on 7 December concluded with the inspector saying that “further investigation” was required.
But Killian’s order not to tell inspectors that the furniture was just the beginning of the changes, according to the lawsuit. He would be required to personally disconnect the motion-sensing light system, set up space heaters, and add locks, which he feared would endanger lives in the event of a potential earthquake or fire ever more so. On December 10, Killian learned that the locks had been installed despite his protests, the suit says, and he resigned that day.
City inspectors, from whom the most sweeping changes were allegedly hidden, gave the company a go at ease in late January, they told Twitter in a statement. notice To properly label the rooms within 15 days or return them to their original use.
It’s unclear if Twitter followed suit, but the new lawsuit has already sparked new pressure from the city. “A new complaint has been opened and an investigation will be conducted into these new allegations,” spokesman Patrick Hannan told SFGATE on Friday. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the complaint first. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)
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