Twitter is shutting down around a dozen international offices for not paying rent or due to an increased number of closures. To reduce costs, CEO Elon Musk is resorting to extreme measures that initially meant offloading staff workers and blocking janitorial services among other things.
Quick Facts
- Centers in Europe and Twitter’s headquarters in Asia are closing down
- Despite Twitter’s consistency in cost-cutting, layoffs, and firings, the closures continue to come
- More offices in the US are expected to shut down in the coming weeks
- The closures will lead to at least a few 100 more employees’ terminations, besides the thousands who were forced to depart or resigned intentionally ever since Musk’s $44 billion takeover.
Some of Twitter’s offices in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Mexico, and Africa are being discontinued. Sources also stated that the offices in Australia, South Korea, Europe, and India have either shut down or are in the process of closing in the coming weeks.
Twitter could possibly go bankrupt
The increasing rent issues have left Twitter with no choice but to shut down its Asia headquarters in Singapore. The landlord for the Singapore office was not available to comment on the matter.
Tech analyst Casey Newton has reiterated that the employees in the Singapore office were ushered out of the building by the landlords, similar to what was observed at the San Francisco office.
“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.
On Wednesday evening Pacific Time, Musk cleared all dues for the Singapore office. The employees of CapitaLand, owner of the building were forced to leave the office due to Twitter’s eviction but were later told to return to work.
Twitter used to have more than two dozen international offices in well-known cities spawning all parts of the world including Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Ghana, Mumbai Manila, Jakarta, and Bangalore. It also had 20 offices in the States.
The urgency of the situation would decrease the number of offices to only a few cities in the US – San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. It would limit its global outreach to London, Dublin, and Tokyo.
In 2021, Twitter had newly constructed an office in Ghana, Twitter’s first investment in Africa. The unforeseen outcome at the Singapore office was preceded by a boost in its services last year.
The office which was first opened in 2015, had expanded in size and workforce meaning the company was ready to grow in the region. Twitter then commented on its business in Singapore.
“The expansion of our engineering hubs outside of the US accelerates our commitment to building a truly global, inclusive, and accessible product by creating a more distributed workforce,” it said.
Other international offices were smaller establishments mostly for business operations mainly engineering and ad sales. However, the advertising department has taken a big hit after Musk bought the company.
As of now, Twitter is burdened by a debt of $13 billion, and its plan to regenerate revenue through paid subscription service Twitter Blue has been slow to take off. Now, the company is on a perpetual diet of cutting costs and firing employees.
Twitter continues to layoff workers
Twitter reported layoffs in the Trust and Safety and Monetization departments last week and individual employees continued to be fired according to Musk’s personal convenience. Employees under teams overseeing the policy on misinformation, global appeals, and state media on the platform were also offloaded.
Musk’s $44 billion takeover in October 2022 led to interest repayments of around $1.5 billion a year besides the debt. Now, he is determined to save Twitter which is losing $4 million a day from going bankrupt.
Musk has been responsible for the departures of around 5,000 of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and for implementing strict measures at the workplace. The company is being sued for unpaid bills for private chartered plane flights, rent, and software services.
