Twitter's Singapore employees forced out of office as Musk fails to pay rent: Report

Things have been going awry for Twitter employees ever since billionaire Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging platform. If a tech analyst is to be believed, Twitter employees in Singapore have been forced out of office by landlord as Elon Musk failed to pay rent. This is the latest in a litany of woes that Twitter's employees have faced in recent months, including layoffs and work pressure that was hitherto unheard of at the company.

Top tech analyst Casey Newton has reported that the employees working at Twitter’s Singapore office were forced to walk out of the building by the landlords. “I'm told Twitter employees were just walked out of its Singapore office — its Asia-Pacific headquarters — over nonpayment of rent. Landlords walked employees out of the building,” Newton tweeted.

Reports had previously revealed that Twitter has not paid the rent for its headquarters, or any of its other global offices, in weeks. Twitter was previously sued for not paying rent for an office space in San Francisco. As per a Bloomberg report, the land owner revealed that the social media giant was notified on December 16, 2022, that it would be in default on its lease for the 30th floor of the Hartford Building in five days unless the rent was paid.

Singapore-based staffers have now been reassigned as remote workers in Twitter’s internal system until further notice, reported Bloomberg on Thursday.

Singapore serves as Twitter’s Asia-Pacific headquarters, a region that was hit hard by deep and abrupt job cuts when new owner Musk took over the San Francisco-based firm. The company this month also let go of Nur Azhar Bin Ayob, who had been the head of site integrity for the region.

Previously, Zoe Shiffler, who is the Managing Editor of Platformer, reported that Twitter will cut down on employee benefits. She mentions that Musk will for now let coffee and office snacks remain.

Twitter is now planning to charge employees for the lunch that was provided to them for free before Musk took over. Reacting to the news report, Musk said that the estimated cost per lunch served in the past 12 months is more than $400. “Especially bizarre given that almost no one came to the office. Estimated cost per lunch served in the past 12 months is >$400,” Musk tweeted.