(FreedomBeacon.com)- The free employee lunches that workers from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters once enjoyed are now off the menu thanks to the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.
While the end of free lunches only received a brief mention in the lengthy New York Times report about Musk’s takeover of Twitter, it caught the attention of the angry blue-checks already furious that Elon Musk took away their favorite toy.
After one Twitter user accused Musk of starving his employees, the Tesla CEO replied that since so few Twitter employees were coming into the office for work, the cost of each “free” lunch had risen to $400 a meal.
One former Twitter employee, Tracy Hawkins, petulantly hit back at Musk, calling his cost estimate a lie.
Hawkins replied to Musk’s tweet saying she ran the food program until she chose to quit rather than work for Musk, and the cost of breakfast and lunch was between $20 and $25 per person. She claimed that offering free meals permitted employees to work through their lunches. She also disputed Musk’s claim that workers weren’t coming into the office, arguing that 20 to 50 percent of workers came to the office.
Musk replied telling Hawkins her assertion was false. He said the company spends $13 million a year on food services for the San Francisco headquarters. What’s more, Musk said, the badge-in records confirmed that peak occupancy in the office had been 25 percent while the average occupancy was below 10 percent.
Musk also noted that Twitter had more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast. He said food service workers don’t bother serving dinner “because there is no one in the building.”
Last Thursday, Musk delivered an ultimatum to Twitter employees telling them they could either pledge to work harder or resign with severance pay by 5:00 pm.
Many chose to resign rather than work hard.
Hundreds of Twitter employees quit, no doubt believing that without them the company would crumble.
Some of them then rushed to reporters warning them of Twitter’s imminent demise.
Only the social media platform carried on without them, much to the disappointment of the Musk-haters.
