Twitter and its outgoing CEO, Elon Musk, are being investigated by officials in San Francisco after six former employees accused the social media giant of turning its headquarters into a “Twitter Hotel” for workers who were asked to stay up late to transform the company.
San Francisco officials are investigating Twitter after six former employees allege that owner Elon Musk’s leadership team broke laws in turning the company’s headquarters into a “Twitter Hotel” for workers. https://t.co/EvgS7cnB5f
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) May 19, 2023
According to the San Francisco Chronicle city officials opened their investigation following a “lawsuit from former senior employees alleged numerous instances where members of owner Elon Musk’s team knowingly broke local and federal laws.”
The six employees filed their lawsuit in a Delaware federal court, and it was that lawsuit that prompted San Francisco officials to open a new investigation into Twitter.
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According to CBS, this is not the first time that San Francisco officials have gone after Elon Musk who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October.
CBS listed two other investigations by the city just since Musk took over. The first was earlier this year when it gave Twitter’s contractor just two weeks to submit a corrected building use permit or face expulsion.
The second was after a Forbes article revealed that Musk outfitted the Twitter headquarters with bedrooms for his employees. This new investigation seems to be related to the one just opened and being called by some in the media the “Twitter Hotel.”
“Twitter’s new leadership deliberately, specifically, and repeatedly announced their intentions to breach contracts, violate laws, and otherwise ignore their legal obligations,” the six former employees alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Delaware federal court and reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
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One of the six plaintiffs in the case is Tracy Hawkins, Twitter’s former vice president of real estate and workplace, and who The Associated Press describes as the person “responsible for managing the company’s physical offices and leases.”
In the lawsuit, Hawkins reveals that she was not initially opposed to Musk’s take over of Twitter, but her attitude quickly changed.
The AP recorded that Hawkins said she “was forced to resign when Elon Musk and his transition team insisted that she violate her professional ethics by causing Twitter to intentionally breach its leases and other contracts.”
Another plaintiff, Joseph Killian, the former Twitter lead project manager of global design and construction, also accused Musk and his leadership team of purposefully violating building codes.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Killian said he was told to disconnect motion-sensitive lights, install space heaters, and install door locks that “were not compliant with life safety and egress codes.”
All of the things listed above, according to the lawsuit, would violate the building code and Twitter’s lease with the building.
The other four plaintiffs in the case include Laura Chan Pytlarz, Andrew Schlaikjer, Wolfram Arnold, and Erik Froese.
The Delaware lawsuit alleges that, in addition to the building code violations that Musk and his leadership team were a part of, the six employees were not paid a promised severance,
Additionally, the lawsuit also claims, according to the New York Post, that Musk refused to pay on the building.
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