Twitter boss Elon Musk (51) is on austerity course: after recently laying off 7,500 employees and grunting the rest to 84-hour work weeks, he is now also cutting the offer of free food at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. On Sunday, Musk said on Twitter that the catering offer was too expensive for the company. Twitter spent about $400 per employee. That would add up to $13 million a year, the billionaire estimates.
It is an unprofitable business for the company to offer free food. “Almost no one comes to the office anymore,” writes the Twitter boss. “There are more people preparing breakfast than people eating it.” The kitchen staff didn’t even want to cook anymore because there was no one left in the building.
“That is a lie”
A real debate started on Twitter. “That’s a lie,” Tracy Hawkins, Twitter’s former vice president of work transformation, replied in a tweet. She ran the feeding program until a week ago, Hawkins writes, before resigning. “We spent $20 to $25 per person per day on breakfast and lunch,” she says. “It allowed employees to work during lunch breaks and meetings.” Attendance at the offices was between 20 and 50 percent.
Musk replied that the data shows otherwise: Office occupancy rates peaked at 25 percent. That would be 10 percent on average. Some users even accused Elon Musk of wanting to starve his employees. But that was questioned: “Does anyone really think companies that don’t offer free lunch want to ‘starve’ their employees?” another user tweeted. “I’ve never worked anywhere where lunch was free, but somehow I survived.” (Hi)