- Elon Musk says he wants to turn one of Twitter’s San Francisco buildings into a homeless shelter.
- The building’s owners rejected the plan, he told the BBC. “If the building owner lets us, we’ll do it.”
- Musk recently painted over the “W” on the office’s logo to turn the company’s name to “Titter.”
Twitter owner Elon Musk has claimed that he wants to turn one of the company’s San Francisco buildings into a homeless shelter, but the building’s owners won’t allow it.
“We tried to turn it into a homeless shelter” but the owners rejected it, the tech mogul told the BBC on Tuesday night. “They won’t let us.”
Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters is made up of two buildings. “We’re only using one of the buildings so the other building could be a homeless shelter,” Musk said. “We would like to do it right now … If the building owner lets us, we’ll do it.”
The building’s owners didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside of regular working hours.
When asked for further details about how the homeless shelter would operate, Musk said: “I don’t know, we could just let people stay there. It’s nice … They could bring their stuff, bring their tent, whatever.”
Musk had previously floated the idea, polling his followers on it in April 2022, shortly after becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder. He said at the time that “no one shows up anyway” at the office, though since buying the company he has told workers to return to the office.
Musk has recently clashed with the building’s owner after he tried to cover up the “W” on a large logo outside the office to turn the company’s name to “Titter.” He later painted over the letter in white instead. “They wouldn’t even let us take the ‘W’ off the sign,” he told the BBC.
Musk, who told the outlet that he sometimes sleeps on a couch in the office’s library, has also converted some of the office space into bedrooms that staff can book out. Other changes Musk has made to the building include auctioning off furniture, trying to sell office plants to staff, and cutting back on snacks. The building’s landlord has also sued Twitter for allegedly stopping paying rent.
Twitter opened its first office in San Francisco in 2006 and the company’s HQ has been based there ever since.
Musk, who has repeatedly clashed with Californian authorities and moved his EV company Tesla’s HQ to Texas, said that Twitter was “not yet” planning to leave San Francisco.
“This place is nice,” he added.
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