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Oakland landlords sue Twitter over nearly $1.3M in unpaid rent

KKR and TMG Partners allege social media firm has not paid four months rent for offices

From left to right: Twitter's Elon Musk, KKR's Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall (top-right); TMG Partners' Michael Covarrubias (bottom-right);1330 Broadway, Oakland (KKR, TMG Partners, Getty, Loopnet)
From left to right: Twitter's Elon Musk, KKR's Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall (top-right); TMG Partners' Michael Covarrubias (bottom-right);1330 Broadway, Oakland (KKR, TMG Partners, Getty, Loopnet)

Landlords of an Oakland skyscraper have sued Twitter over nearly $1.3 million in unpaid rent.

An affiliate of New York-based KKR and San Francisco-based TMG Partners have sued the social media firm for four months of back rent at 1330 Broadway in Downtown, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Twitter leased 66,600 square feet in the building in 2021 but last summer said it would not occupy the offices.

The complaint says Twitter hasn’t paid rent since last November, a few days after the San Francisco-based platform was acquired by billionaire investor Elon Musk. Its lease runs through March 2029, according to the lawsuit. 

KKR seeks back rent, late fees and prejudgment interest on the amount it says it is owed, plus attorney’s fees, according to the complaint.

KKR declined to comment to the Business Times. TMG could not be reached for comment. Twitter has not responded to media questions since Musk took over and disbanded the media relations department.

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Musk, who paid $44 billion for Twitter in late October, stopped paying rent for its offices around the globe, including its San Francisco headquarters at 1355 Market Street, in a cost-cutting move, the New York Times reported.

In January, JPMorgan and San Francisco-based Shorenstein, which own Twitter’s headquarters building in San Francisco, sued the company for allegedly failing to pay $6.85 million over two months, the Business Times reported.  Similar lawsuits have been filed in London and Seattle. 

Twitter has yet to answer that headquarters suit in court. Subsequent court filings by Shorenstein suggest Twitter has failed to pay rent since the beginning of the year. A hearing is scheduled for March 30.

Twitter put the Oakland space — which had not been built out — up for sublease in August of last year, part of a global cost-cutting strategy that preceded Musk. Twitter also said it would vacate its offices at 1 10th Street, next to its Mid-Market headquarters in San Francisco. 

— Dana Bartholomew

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