Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 250 posts

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#141

Post by butlerm »

criley2 wrote: post #95
phpisthebest wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in knowing how many other tenants this landlord has chosen to file suit on when the tenant is 7 days over due (in default in 21st, filed the suit on the 29th)? Seem very aggressive. I wonder if politics has any bearing on their choice to file? Or the fact that Elon has publicly been considering closing the SanFran HQ?

[flagged]

Unless Twitter has no assets of any marketable value (which obviously isn't the case, the company itself just sold for 44 billion dollars) the landlords will get paid, worst case by having Twitter issue additional stock in a debt for equity swap.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#142

Post by 93po »

drc37 wrote: post #138

My biggest question is: who cares? Lot’s of people in this community (and the media) love to pounce on people and companies who don’t think the same as them. These people/groups talk about being inclusive right up and until the others don’t share their points of view. It’s exhausting There are 1,000s of companies across the country do this very same thing without any fan fare. Just stop it!!!

You see the same thing when a Tesla car catches fire after an accident. It's front page international news. I saw an F150 on fire on the side of the highway a few weeks ago. I'm sure there's a large public outcry about Ford as well.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#143

Post by 93po »

CottonMcKnight wrote: post #133
chasing wrote: post #36

Reputation matters.

The Trump Organization got away with doing this in New York for decades. He'd stiff one real estate developer figuring there was always another who would be star-struck by the "opportunity" to work with him. (He was right.)

[flagged]

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#144

Post by bombcar »

93po wrote: post #142
drc37 wrote: post #138

My biggest question is: who cares? Lot’s of people in this community (and the media) love to pounce on people and companies who don’t think the same as them. These people/groups talk about being inclusive right up and until the others don’t share their points of view. It’s exhausting There are 1,000s of companies across the country do this very same thing without any fan fare. Just stop it!!!

You see the same thing when a Tesla car catches fire after an accident. It's front page international news. I saw an F150 on fire on the side of the highway a few weeks ago. I'm sure there's a large public outcry about Ford as well.

If it was an electric F150 it probably would have been news.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#145

Post by jcranmer »

phpisthebest wrote: post #93
sschueller wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't in default mean they had several reminders to pay and have now defaulted and invalidated their lease agreement?

As soon as your 1 day late you are in default. Most organizations however give noticed and plenty of time before filing law suits thus my question. The "news" here seems to be lacking any context, and I assume bad intentions on the part of NY Times and Bloomberg so...

The article is too vague on details, and I don't see the actual court filing readily accessible (bad journalists! always give a link to court filings!). But given the timeline and the wording, it seems likely to me that Twitter has not paid its rent for November or December--in other words, it's not one, but two missed payments. If that is indeed the case, then I do not find it all surprising that a lawsuit would be so aggressively filed after the second missed payment.

Even if not the case, Twitter has had very public issues which make it extremely likely that it is intentionally not paying the bills that are due. Thus, if the landlord wants to get its money, it either has to get Twitter to renegotiate its contract to one that it is willing to pay, or go to court to force Twitter to abide to the contract (including, potentially, invoking early termination clause). I don't know how much Twitter is behind on to this landlord, but the initial filing costs to the landlord are likely to be in the realm of a few thousand dollars, so it doesn't take much for it to be worth it to the landlord to sue pretty aggressively.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#146

Post by joshe »

Mid term (2-5 years) it seems like it would be optimal for Twitter to leave SF. Downtown isn't that great to work in and the Elon hate is red hot. They could still keep their SF employees as a satellite office. Bailing on what is surely a very pricey lease is an attractive bonus :-).

Though, it would be hilarious if Twitter's no work from home policy lead to downtown revitalization :0).

I still think SF has a lot to offer startups, but it's no longer essential. Talent has scattered a bit and work from home will continue to drain people away.

Also you probably want to run content moderation from somewhere a little less lopsided ideology-wise. A little more normie like Salt Lake City, Phoenix, or Austin. Ideally a content moderator should be able to have a civil lunch with 80% of the country.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#147

Post by 93po »

cozzyd wrote: post #4
romellem wrote: post #2

Is the calculation just that the cost of litigation will be less than the full contract lease? I don’t understand how that could work.

Musk probably fired the guy in charge of paying rent

It's cool that HN just turns into baseless speculation around Elon now

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#148

Post by 93po »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #7
naveen99 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter could just declare bankruptcy and restructure.

I agree this is where things are headed. Is it a sure thing that Elon maintains control in a restructuring?

What are your thoughts on why this is the direction it's headed? What is your experience with dealing with bankruptcy for multibillion dollar companies?

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#149

Post by 93po »

phpisthebest wrote: post #88
jmyeet wrote: post #69

Some claim Twitter is attempting to renegotiate. That may well be true. But this doesn't fit in well with the greater narrative. Since Elon's takeover of Twitter, it's been one PR disaster after the next. Mass layoffs, begging people to come back, cutting remote work, cutting in-office catering, the whole Twitter Blue debacle, unbanning some of the worst, the drop of advertising spend on Twitter (which, at least in p…

>>begging people to come back I dont believe that every actually happened. The most often cited case of that was the twitter thread about badge access which was proven to be a hoax much like Ligma Johnson Devs. The Media however does not fact check anything so any negative stories are just run with no validation >>Since Elon's takeover of Twitter, it's been one PR disaster after the next. Only if you are of a certain…

[flagged]

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#150

Post by butlerm »

dathinab wrote: post #102
nostrademons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Litigation takes years to play out, paying the lease would result in bankruptcy imminently. Plan is to live another day, long enough to stabilize finances, and then unload it on the public markets where the litigation becomes somebody else's problem.

In some countries delaying filling for insolvency this way is a crime which is hold against the person responsible for it (instead of the company). So I'm not sure this is the case tbh. but I'm also not sure if this applies here and I don't know the respective US laws.

In the United States creditors can file a petition for an involuntary bankruptcy, which if granted would effectively put the company into receivership and no doubt under less friendly administration than a voluntary Chapter 11 filing.
Post reply on HN