Elon Musk's next big Twitter change is... to ban free lunches
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Elon Musk's next big Twitter change is... to ban free lunches
You won't get a free lunch at Twitter anymore, as Musk says no one is even in to eat them
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Twitter lunch ban
🥪 Elon Musk is putting an end to free lunches at Twitter HQ
💵 The company cafeteria will now charge employees for food
📈 Musk said the cost per lunch served in the past 12 months was over $400
👎 However, an ex-Twitter employee who ran the lunch program has disputed Musk’s claims
After recently telling employees that Twitter could face bankruptcy, Elon Musk has now moved to ban the company’s free lunch policy.
The penny-pinching news was first shared by The New York Times, which said Musk would begin making employees pay for lunch at the company cafeteria.
Musk has since claimed that the free food scheme wasn’t worth it as no one came into the office, something which should change soon as Musk has banned remote working.
In a reply on Twitter, Musk estimated that the cost per lunch served in the past 12 months is over $400, which is a lot more expensive than the cheese and ham sandwich I’ll be having during my break.
However, Musk’s claim has been branded “a lie” by an ex-Twitter employee who ran the free lunch program at the social media company. Tracy Hawkins took to Twitter and said:
“This is a lie. I ran this program up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn’t want to work for Elon Musk. For breakfast & lunch we spent $20-$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru [sic] lunchtime & mtgs [meetings]. Attendance was anything from 20-50% in the offices.”
Hawkins tagged the South African billionaire in her tweet and – as you might expect the Twitter CEO had no problem refuting Hawkins’ claims.
“False,” replied Musk. “Twitter spends $13M/year on food service for SF HQ. Badge in records show peak occupancy was 25%, average occupancy below 10%. There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast. They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building.”
So who’s telling the truth? It’s fair to believe that Musk will have access to the financial comings and goings at Twitter, but Hawkins has direct experience with the free lunch scheme.
Either way, it seems like Musk is getting in the habit of butting heads with Twitter employees, especially when they have the stones to question his claims. Musk recently apologized for Twitter being “super slow” in many countries and that the app is “doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!”
Twitter employee Eric Frohnhoefer, who is probably wondering whether he’ll still have a job after the exchange, quote tweeted Musk’s claims and said “I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong.”
In turn, Musk replied and asked Frohnhoefer to provide “the right number” if he was wrong and also said “Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?”
Public spats are never fun, but they must be especially nerve-wracking when you’re having it with a CEO who now owns the company you work for and who recently laid off almost half of your co-workers.
Twitter continues to be a source of entertainment for all the wrong reasons right now, with the company rolling back its $8 Twitter Blue subscriptions after the site was plagued with accounts impersonating real businesses.
Insulin producer Eli Lilly saw its stock drop because of a fake blue check tweet, but Twitter has begun giving businesses a second check mark to combat the self-inflicted problem.
Tongue-in-cheek company dbrand has joined in the conversation about the blue check mark fiasco by releasing its own Twitter verification stickers that let you slap a blue check on anything.