Elon Musk floated the idea of turning Twitter Inc’s headquarters into a homeless shelter, prompting a tweet of support from Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos.
The new Twitter board member on Saturday posted a poll on the idea, saying that “no one shows up anyway” — an apparent reference to the company’s policy to allow employees the option of working remotely — adding “I’m serious about this one.”
The tweets come just days before he’s set to join Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal at a company meeting to address staff questions.
‘Great idea’
Bezos, a fellow billionaire, responded Sunday with a link to a report about a homeless shelter attached to an Amazon office building, noting that a portion of Twitter’s space could be converted, making it easier for employees who want to volunteer. Musk called the suggestion a “great idea.”
People on Twitter weren’t sure whether to take Musk seriously. “Amazingly ridiculous idea,” one wrote. The poll closed with 91 per cent of people voting in favour of the shelter.
Homelessness is a particularly visible problem at Twitter’s headquarters, located in a part of San Francisco where residents have grappled with urban decay and drug addiction. Over the weekend, Musk fired off a series of tweets suggesting that Twitter offer authentication checkmarks and zero ads for users that pay for premium features.
Authentication checkmarks
After investor Michael Burry complained about losing his account’s authentication checkmark, the billionaire and new Twitter board member told Burry he’ll get it back and also suggested that the company give authentication checkmarks to all Twitter Blue users.
Twitter’s monthly subscription service offers premium features such as some ad-free articles and the ability to retract a tweet before it’s visible to others and is available to users in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He ruminated on various ways to structure payments for the premium service, including perhaps with the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
Musk has already weighed in on the lack of an edit button as well as how little celebrities like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift post on the social media network.
Published on
April 11, 2022
