Twitter: After banning remote work, Elon Musk goes after free lunches

First it was remote working, now Twitter boss Elon Musk is looking at taking away free lunches for staff.

According to the New York Times, the new Twitter CEO and Tesla/ Space X founder has decided that Twitter will no longer put out free lunch for staff in a bid to save the company $13 million (£11m) a year.

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On Twitter Musk later claimed that there were “more people preparing breakfast than eating it” in an exchange with a former Twitter executive on the platform, after previously suggesting that the company was spending $400 per lunch.

However, Tracey Hawkins, who was a VP within Twitter’s real estate business until recently, said Musk’s claims were “a lie” and that the typical spend per employee for breakfast and lunch was $20-$25 a day.

Hawkins also rejected Musk’s claims that “almost no [staff]” came in to work at Twitter’s offices over the past 12 months, suggested that “attendance was anything between 20-50% in the offices” and that offering food for staff “enabled employees to work thru [sic] lunchtime & [meetings].”

Musk in turn retorted that Hawkins’ claims were “false” and that employee badge access data for Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters showed that “peak occupancy was 25%, average occupancy below 10%”.

False. Twitter spends $13M/year on food service for SF HQ. Badge in records show peak occupancy was 25%, average occupancy below 10%.
There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast.
They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

He added: “There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast. They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.”

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It was only last week that Musk sent his very first email to Twitter staff in which he announced an immediate ban on remote working in all cases except those signed off by him personally.

Musk has also culled thousands of jobs at the social media company: after laying off approximately 50% of Twitter staff last week, the CEO reported axed an additional 4,400 contractors over the weekend.