Twitter Spends $13 Million Per Year On Food At Its California Headquarters

In late October, billionaire businessman Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, according to The New York Times. The Tesla and SpaceX mastermind immediately began making changes, slicing the employment roster, promoting free speech, and creating a paid version, which has been suspended due to impersonation issues involving the coveted blue checkmark. Since taking over the social media platform, Musk has had his fair share of scrutiny, which consequently led to him revealing the companies' spending habits when it comes to food (via NDTV).

In large corporations like Twitter, a sizeable food budget is the norm. According to Business Insider, Google's spending allotment is massive, coming in at over $72 million per year. Each of the 9,600 employees eat two to three times per day, equaling $7,530 per worker at year's end. In reality, this number could potentially be higher due to undisclosed employee numbers in several other offices. In comparison, Twitter's budget sounds like pennies, but there are several factors that go into reaching these totals.

Elon Musk has denied allegations from a former Twitter employee that 25% to 50% of employees are working and eating from office (per NDTV). In an earlier tweet, Musk claimed that "almost no one came to the office" and that the estimated cost per lunch in the past year was more than $400. Former vice president of work transformation Tracy Hawkins responded to his comments. "This is a lie. I ran this program up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn't want to work for @elonmusk. For breakfast & lunch we spent $20-$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru lunchtime & mtgs. Attendance was anything from 20-50% in the offices," she said.

Musk fired back to this tweet, writing "False. 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."

This entire exchange began with a since-deleted tweet claiming Musk was planning on making employees pay for their own lunch.