Twitter memorabilia auctioned by Elon Musk to cut costs

We all know that Twitter was acquired by SpaceX and Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk in October 2022 for a whooping price of 44 billion dollars. Following Musk’s takeover, Twitter continued to rule the news for very many reasons starting the rise of hate speech on the platform, vague advertisements, mass layoffs and mass resignations.  

Now, after a brief hiatus, Twitter is once again back in the news headlines for a different reason. Recently, several of its memorabilia were sold off at an auction organised by San Francisco based auction house Heritage Global Partners Inc. It was a 27-hour-long online auction and comprised of 631 items from the San Francisco headquarters deemed as ‘Twitter’s surplus corporate office assets’. The products ranged from the industrial scale kitchenware such as espresso machine to usual office furniture like whiteboards, designer chairs and coffee tables, as well as desks. It also included mundane items such as over 100 boxes of KN95 masks.  

Also in the mix was a quirky signage (a neon display of its logo) to stationary bike stations (with the facility of charging appliances), not to forget a wide array of smart gadgets such as iMacs and LED screens. However, the most popular items that were up for grabs in the auction included a giant (3.5 feet) Twitter blue bird statue and an “@” symbol sculpture planter. While the starting bid for the Twitter bird statue was a mere 25 dollars, it finally sold off for a whooping 100,000 dollars. Sources cite that other impressive bid came for a designer coffee table that sold for 1350 dollars and 58 Apple power adapters, sold for 2400 dollars. It has also been revealed that nothing sold for less than 300 dollars.  

While netizens have deemed this move by Elon Musk as a way to shoot up Twitter’s finances, officials from the company assured that the auction had nothing to do with their economic condition. Regardless, this move is sure to cut costs radically at the company headquarters, reported to have failed to pay rents, attracting a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the Singapore office of Twitter has also been asked to vacate, with employees ordered to work from home.