Twitter’s earliest offices were in SoMa, or San Francisco’s South Market District, until 2011, when then-Mayor Ed Lee introduced controversial tax breaks for tech companies. The decision eliminated the 1.5 percent payroll tax for companies that moved into certain mid-market buildings. Twitter jumped at the chance.
The company was considered a major tenant in a densely populated neighborhood marked by homelessness and open drug use. Suddenly, a sprawling, high-end food market, a Blue Bottle Coffee shop, and tech workers with MacBooks and expensive sneakers littered Market Street, along with people in various states of distress camped out in front of the still-empty storefronts.
The ultimate results of Lee’s tax cuts and neighborhood revitalization plans are up for debate, and the pandemic is a huge complicating factor, with reports showing that office space in San Francisco averages more than a third vacant.
Musk, now famously, brought a sink into Twitter’s offices just after closing a deal to buy the platform in October 2022, tweeting: “Let that sink in!” after changing the company’s name to X in the summer of 2023 ., Musk erected a giant flashing X atop the offices, only to be forced to take it down days later when San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection received dozens of complaints about flashing lights and concerns about the structural safety of the sign.
X is also said to have been a bad tenant in the Musk era: its landlord, SRI Nine Market Square, in early 2023. sued X for more than $3 million in unpaid rent. SRI Nine Market sought to extend Twitter’s line of credit to $10 million as a guarantee that future rent would be paid. Other suppliers have also sued X for non-payment of their bills.
But in January this year, SRI Nine Market dropped the case, Reuters reported. It is not clear why. SRI Nine Market did not respond to an inquiry regarding the current status of X’s lease and whether the company will be breaking said lease by vacating its office space in the coming weeks.
