Britain’s Crown Estate, an independent commercial firm that manages the property portfolio belonging to the British monarch, has filed a lawsuit against the social media giant over alleged unpaid rent at its London offices.
Court listings showed that the case against Twitter was lodged in the High Court in London last week.
The Crown Estate, which is owned by King Charles and administers thousands of acres of Crown-owned land across the UK, has confirmed the ‘rent arrears’ action at its premises at 20 Air Street, London.
The 260-year-old firm is one of the largest landowners in the UK, including 10 million square feet of property in London’s West End alone. Profits from land and building collection are collected by the UK government, with $3 billion generated for public spending over the past 10 years.
Since taking over Twitter last year, Elon Musk has cut costs, including cutting at least $1 billion IT spendingauction surplus office fornitureAnd dismissal more than half of the workforce.
Reports suggest the tech giant’s London office near Piccadilly Circus has been abandoned for a few months, with signage and Twitter logos removed.
This isn’t the first time Musk’s company has gotten into trouble for being late on rent
The British court case comes with similar problems in the United States, where Twitter failed to pay nearly $6.8 million in rent on its San Francisco headquarters in December and January, according to a lawsuit filed by the owner.
Sri Nine Market Square took $3.6 million out of Twitter’s security deposit to settle a missed payment in December, but Twitter still owes $3.1 million in unpaid rent from January.
Twitter leases more than 460,000 square feet of space across eight floors in the San Francisco building, according to the complaint.
The owner is also seeking to raise Twitter’s letter of credit to $10 million, based on a clause in its lease triggered by the transfer of control of the company, but said Twitter has refused to do so.
Meanwhile, earlier this month another San Francisco landlord accused Elon Musk’s company of not paying rent.
The owner of 650 California St.—Columbia REIT, an affiliate of the Columbia Property Trust—accused the tech giant of evading $136,260 in rental payments for use of the 30th floor, according to the lawsuit.
Nonpayment it was reported as part of Musk’s overall corporate strategy to keep costs down. So far the approach has shifted from skipping rent to refusing to pay jet flights took.
