A $35,000 (roughly Rs.2,848,000) neon Twitter bird, anyone? How about a used industrial kitchen mixer at a good price? Once there….
When Elon Musk want to make a point, it can be pretty blunt. The day he took over Twitter Last fall, he walked into the company’s San Francisco headquarters with a sink. He tweeted, “Let that sink in.” Got it?
After the company’s workforce was cut and rent and contract obligations fell behind, Twitter under the leapfrog billionaire is now auctioning off memorabilia, chic office furniture and professional kitchen appliances from its San Francisco offices, where vast swathes now stand empty and free meals are a relic the past.
With the auction, Musk has a twofold message: draw attention to the perceived excesses of the previous Twitter administration, while signaling that cutting costs — at all costs — is the top priority.
The items that will command the highest bids alongside the neon bird include a plain Twitter bird statue for over $30,000 (around Rs. 2,441,100) and a planter sculpture with the “@” symbol. Professional kitchen appliances now cost tens of thousands of dollars. These include a commercial dehydrator, deep fryer, and semi-automatic espresso maker from La Marzocco Strada, which retail for around $25,000 (approx.
Even when it all adds up, the money from the auction, which ends Wednesday, is unlikely to impact Twitter’s financial commitments.
Musk bought Twitter for US$44 billion (about Rs.3.58 billion) in October and the company is busy paying interest of about US$1 billion (about Rs.8.1 billion) a year from the deal. Most of Musk’s wealth is tied to his ownership of Tesla stock, which has lost more than 40 percent of its value since he took over Twitter in late October. Since April, when he began taking a position at Twitter, he has sold nearly US$23 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle company to fund the purchase. He even lost the top spot for the richest person in the world, according to Forbes.
Twitter, which no longer has a press department, did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Wednesday.
Musk defended his extreme cost-cutting moves in a late-night call to Twitter Spaces in December.
“This company is basically like you’re on a plane that’s going to land at high speed with its engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk said Dec. 21.
