Just as Elon Musk ordered Twitter employees to return to the office, he plans to eliminate their costly free-lunch perk—arguing staff didn’t show up to eat in the first place.
The reasoning may defy logic now that he has ended the privilege of remote working instituted by Jack Dorsey in October 2020, but it is emblematic of the company’s acute financial trouble.
Twitter is losing over $4 million every day by Musk’s count, and it faces a reported $1 billion in additional interest payments to cover the $13 billion in debt Musk piled onto the company as part of the deal.
Spending cuts at Twitter have proved a divisive issue with some seeing Musk’s latest measures as a draconian attempt to recoup the money on his overpaid investment, while others have little sympathy as eliminating perks are naturally one of the first levers to pull when restructuring a company deeply in the red.
Musk said Twitter spent an estimated $400-plus per lunch served, or roughly $13 million a year for its San Francisco headquarters.
Part of the reason for the high per-meal cost, he pointed out, was extremely low office attendance. Occupancy on an average day was clocked at less than 10%.
Twitter’s vice president of real estate, Tracy Hawkins, disagreed with his calculation however, saying attendance was much higher—anywhere from 20% to 50% in the offices.
“This is a lie,” posted Hawkins, who said she has chosen to resign rather than work for Musk. “For breakfast and lunch we spent $20 to $25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work through lunchtime and meetings.”
