A view of the Twitter logo at its headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
New York TimesA few days ago it was learned from an informant that in order to reduce expenses Elon Musk refused to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars of travel expenses accumulated by Twitter employees before taking over the company. It is reported that Musk has issued an order to slow down or suspend payments to Twitter’s original suppliers and service providers. He has asked employees to review and renegotiate with partners, covering areas that include IT expenses, travel, software services, headquarters costs and even office catering. The move sparked dissatisfaction within Twitter and vendors, which are said to have defaulted on millions of dollars in payments from some of its partner companies.
Additionally, Musk has also asked the team to review cooperation with sports leagues like the NFL and NBA, as well as media companies like Fox and Condé Nast, and is looking to renegotiate new deals with companies like Amazon and Oracle. In the process, employees’ corporate credit cards were deactivated, free lunches were cancelled, and all refunds were delayed. Unsurprisingly, none of the checks Twitter had promised charities in the past had cashed.
To acquire Twitter, Musk took out loans totaling $13 billion and is said to pay up to $1 billion a year in interest. He once warned employees that “the economic situation ahead is grim” and admitted that the company “failure is not impossible」。