Crown Estate has sued Twitter for the unpaid rent of the building which Twitter is using as its London headquarters. This includes the office workspace located near the Piccadilly Circus in central London. The Crown Estate which looks after properties owned by the King has filed a lawsuit against Twitter at the London High Court. Twitter has yet to make any comments on the lawsuit filed by the Crown Estate. Earlier this month, Twitter employees were escorted out of its Singapore office by the Landlord after Musk failed to pay the rent. So this lawsuit seems to have served more problems to Twitter’s plate. Twitter employees have been struggling heavily since Musk purchased the company back in October 2022. Since then, Twitter employees have been exposed to many problems such as sudden layoffs, straining work culture, demanding working hours, and many others. After being escorted out of their Singapore office, Twitter employees were ordered to work from home. This was another missed sense of understanding from Musk’s side as he was the one who ended work from home for all the employees when he became the company CEO.
Regarding its London headquarters, the Crown Estate said that they contacted Twitter first about the due rent before filing the lawsuit. This is another massive setback for Twitter because the Crown Estate directly addresses the Monarch, and being legally challenged by an organization of such scale is significantly detrimental to the company's position in the UK. Crown Estate is one of the largest landholders in the UK which belongs to the Monarch, which means currently to King Charles III. This land is covered under the sovereign's public estate. This means that the land maintained by the Crown Estate, is not owned by the government nor that it comes under the private estate of the Monarch. As compensation for their support, the Monarch is given 15% of the annual revenue generated by the Crown Estate. Crown Estate manages over 10 million square feet or 230 acres of land in the UK, which is a significant portion of land as it includes some of the most crucial locations in the UK.
Along with the Singapore incident, Twitter is also facing problems regarding its office in San Francisco, California. The Twitter office in San Francisco is considered the main headquarters for the company as this is where the company started its operations. It is also important as it puts Twitter in the line of popular tech companies in the world and as an integral part of Silicon Valley. Hence, out of all the global locations, this is one of the locations which Twitter just cannot afford to lose. But SRI Nine Market Square LLC, the landowner of the Twitter HQ, has filed a lawsuit against Twitter in the California Superior Court in San Francisco after the company failed to pay the rent of $3.4 million in December. This has seriously damaged the public image of Twitter and Elon Musk as people are seriously criticizing his course of action. With a total number of three cases of failing to pay office rent, many are waiting for an official response from Musk, who is currently facing heat for his role in Tesla, another of his companies.
