King Charles III's Real Estate Portfolio Sues Twitter For Not Paying Rent In London

27/01/2023

The Crown Estate, which manages the properties of King Charles III, is suing Twitter.

According to reports, the company allegedly failed to pay its rent for its London headquarters at Air Street, located near the central Piccadilly Circus.

And the estate Twitter occupies, is apparently managed by King Charles III's crown estate.

The Crown Estate, which owns a property portfolio worth £15.6 billion, including hundreds of locations in central London, has filed a claim against Twitter for the company's “rental arrears” in the High Court in London.

And according to reports, The Crown Estate was forced to take legal action after previously contacting the social media company, and that it still failed to pay for the rent for its office space.

Elon Musk, Twitter
Twitter office at Air Street, London

While the two parties negotiate, all Twitter logos have been removed from the London site.

While Elon Musk's company still occupies it, visible signs and cues about the company's headquarters have been taken down.

The Crown Estate is one of the largest landowners in the UK, and although the portfolio belongs to the monarch, it is not private property.

Because of this, revenues from the estate go straight to the UK Treasury for it to be made available for public spending.

In return, the monarch is then given a percentage of the annual surplus of the estate, known as the Sovereign Grant, to support official duties and the monarch's expenses.

In 2022, it was £86.3 million.

Besides offices and commercial buildings in London, it's worth noting that King Charles III also controls the Manor of Lancaster, which covers more than 18,000 hectares of land in England and Wales.

And in addition that that, King Charles III's mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September 2022, personally owned a number of estates of Sandringham in England and Balmoral in Scotland.

King Charles III, The Crown Estate

The news came after Twitter was acquired, and taken over, by Elon Musk.

The eccentric billionaire ">paid $44 billion for the platform, and soon, he made numerous changes, many of which literally turned the company upside down.

For starters, he fired nearly 50% of the workforce. Musk even fired several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, as well as a number of janitors and security personnel.

And because the company is having less workforce than before, the Chief Twit reportedly crammed the remaining employees.

Managers who didn't lose their jobs in the mass layoffs, had to "approach their spending with a tactic known as zero-based budgeting," or "operating under the assumption that spending should start at nothing and teams should justify individual costs, according to the costs-savings document."

Musk then went further in his cost cutting measures, by closing down a number of offices, and shutting down one of Twitter’s data centers in California. He also discontinued several facilities for employees, and stopped the company from providing anymore free lunch and free snacks.

Elon Musk, Twitter

Not just that, Musk is also selling furniture, kitchen appliances, and all the so-called "unwanted" items present at Twitter's headquarters.

Musk’s takeover has been commencing with quite a lot of issues, including the chaotic relaunch of the blue tick scheme for verified users.

While Musk continues attempts to cut costs and renegotiate leases, Twitter has reportedly been hit by huge drop in revenue after hundreds of clients have paused their spending, with high-profile brands such as Audi and Pfizer have halted their ads on the platform.

Further reading: Elon Musk's Twitter Extreme Cost Cutting: Rent Not Paid, No Kitchen, No Toilet Rolls, And No 'Unwanted' Things