Elon Musk accused of 'starving' Twitter workers by making them pay for their own food
Twitter employees will now have to pay for their own food. The privileges were said to have cost $400 per employee per day.
Elon Musk is cracking down on wastage at his newly acquired company, Twitter. Following the dismissal of more than half the company’s workforce and a large chunk of its contractors, Musk has now placed the company’s free dining on the chopping block.
Twitter employees will now have to pay for their own meals. The move prompted hyperbolic accusations against Musk, with many suggesting that he was intent on 'starving' his workforce, which reportedly cost $400 per person to feed daily.
Following his acquisition of the company last month, Musk promptly fired over half of the company’s 7,500 workforce and implemented a mandatory work-in-office policy. With some exceptions, employees who got used to working from home will have to show up in person to do their jobs, similar to his other companies.
In a series of tweets, Musk said that he’s scrapping the company’s free meals served at its headquarters in San Francisco because it was draining the company to the tune of $13 million dollars a year.
On Sunday, Musk said that offering free meals at the company’s cafeteria had become unsustainable because “almost no one came to the office,” and that there were more cafeteria workers than there were employees at the office.
His remarks prompted a former Twitter employee to insist that the free meals only cost around $25 per employee per day — a claim that Musk shot down.
“This is a lie. I ran this program up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn’t want to work for @elonmusk,” wrote Tracy Hawkins on Twitter, the company’s former VP of work transformation. “For breakfast & lunch we spent $20-$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru lunchtime & mtgs. Attendance was anything from 20-50% in the offices.”
Musk hit back to say that Twitter’s own records show that office occupancy only averaged at 10% and peaked at 25%.
“There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast,” Musk said. “They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.”
False. Twitter spends $13M/year on food service for SF HQ. Badge in records show peak occupancy was 25%, average occupancy below 10%.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022
There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast.
They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.
His move prompted accusations that he was “planning to starve” his workers, which many rebutted to say that free lunches were not normal at most companies, including Silicon Valley ones.
Don't Get Censored
Big Tech is censoring us. Sign up so we can always stay in touch.