Elon Musk moves X out of San Francisco. City leaders shrug

After 18 years, Elon Musk will move X, formerly known as Twitter, out of San Francisco, according to Mayor London Breed’s office. The social media company has a long history with the city, but the billionaire entrepreneur, who acquired the platform in 2022, has often used it to bash the city’s progressive politics and homelessness crisis.

The social network’s departure will mark the end of an era for San Francisco’s downtown Mid-Market neighborhood, where city officials once courted tech companies with incentives dubbed the “Twitter tax break.” Musk made deep cuts to Twitter’s workforce when he acquired the company in October 2022, and X only has about 120 employees left in San Francisco, said a person familiar with the company’s plans, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss company plans they were not authorized to disclose. The employees will be moved to office space in San Jose and Palo Alto, where Musk’s AI start-up, xAI, operates out of, the person said, and the company will conduct a survey to figure out where individual employees want to work.

The city’s chief economist says that after Musk’s deep staff cuts, X didn’t offer much to San Francisco anyway.

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