Musk Auctioning Off Wares at Twitter Headquarters

Alice Giordano
By Alice Giordano
December 12, 2022Science & Tech
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Musk Auctioning Off Wares at Twitter Headquarters
A phone screen displays the Twitter account of Elon Musk with a photo of him shown in the background, in Washington in this photo illustration, on April 14, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

While you can’t get the office gossip that no doubt took place around Twitter’s coffee maker, you can now get the actual machine; that is, if you are the highest bidder.

The social media giant’s new owner Elon Musk is auctioning off everything including the kitchen sink from Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Besides a myriad of office furniture, there are some pretty funky items going on the auction block, including a real-life wooden statue in the image of the virtual blue Twitter icon.

NTD Photo
This 46″W x 41″H x 12″D Twitter Bird Statue is one of more than 200 items being auctioned off from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. (Heritage Global Partners)

Also up for grabs is another virtual icon—a six foot tall wooden sculpture of the “@” symbol. According to its listing, the sculpture was being used as a planter for artificial plants. But as the post assures, the fake ones “can be replaced with real plants.”

There are also dozens of office chairs, tons of stainless steel kitchen equipment, and a wide variety of cookware including a vegetable dryer and smoothie maker, which no doubt kept the energy flowing for Twitter’s arduous fact checking department.

And yes, also up for grabs is Twitter’s Fetco CBS-2152-2-XTS Series Stainless Steel Double Automatic Coffee Brewer. It’s opening bid, like the rest of the items up for auction, is $25.

“This is not a good sign. Elon Musk must be desperate for cash,” tweeted one Twitter user in jest about the reason for the auction. Others made similar jokes that the auction was to help offset the $44 billion Musk paid for the social media platform, while others turned the auction into fodder against Twitter workers.

“Check out this auction of stuff from Twitter HQ that Elon Musk is getting rid of. The extravagant opulence and excess that all these little tyrannical champagne communists love to surround themselves with is a monument to their depravity and hypocrisy,” tweeted a Twitter user that goes by the name VivaLaMaga posted.

Among the pricey items that make up the 256-lot includes two Rock the Bike Fender Pro Recharge Stations, which according to rockthebike.com retails new for about $4,000 each. There is also a La Marzocco Strada 3EE Semi-Auto Espresso Machine, which retails for around $22,000 and 360 Knoll peds, apparently a hot commodity, because they are already being featured on auction hunter websites like bidspotter.com.

Musk hired Heritage Global Partners to handle the auction. The California company is formerly known as the Dove Brothers, the world’s largest auction house of corporate assets. It is also the first in the auction business to hold on-line auctions like the one Twitter is having.

The auction house will start taking opening bids for the Twitter items on Jan. 17, with plans to close bids the following day on Jan. 18. Interested buyers can preview the items online or make an appointment to see them in person.

According to Heritage Global Partners’ website, bidders must first register with the company in order to participate in the auction.

Heritage Global Partners could not be reached for comment about the Twitter auction, but a spokesperson previously told Fortune.com that such an auction was standard operating procedure for company takeovers.

While the proceeds from the auction won’t likely make a dent in Twitter’s $44 billion purchase price, Musk is hoping to recoup some of his investment by charging a monthly subscription fee.

As The Epoch Times has reported, Musk has claimed that Twitter was losing $4 million a day when he bought the company. Last month, he fired 3,700 workers, which represents about half of its workforce.

The terminated workers filed a lawsuit against Musk over the layoffs, the latest in the hostility Musk has met with from company staff.

Musk, however, made it very clear that he did not buy Twitter to preserve its ways, but to expose company corruption and put it on a new path.

In his vows to restore free speech and end the promotion of such iniquities as child porn, Musk commented in a Nov. 23 tweet about his new company. “The more I learn, the worse it gets. The world should know the truth of what has been happening at Twitter.”

As Twitter’s CEO, Musk seems to have made a lot of new friends from the right, with recent supporting tweets from GOPers like Rep. Marjorie Greene Taylor and Rudi Guiliani.

“May God bless @ElonMusk and grant others the courage to do the right thing. Our country is at stake,” Guiliani said in a Dec. 7 tweet.

Musk himself seems to be encouraging the support. On Dec. 11, he tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” prefacing the content in the next batch of Twitter internal documents that he is releasing from before his takeover.

From The Epoch Times