Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images and Heritage Global Partners
On Wednesday at 10am PST, the online auction of 631 corporate paraphernalia objects culled from Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, first announced several weeks ago, drew to a close, producing lucrative results: the top lot, an electric neon wall display shaped like the Twitter logo, went for $35,500. A statue of the logo sold for $32,500, while an “@” shaped sculpture planter fetched $13,000.
The bulk sale, facilitated by Heritage Global Partners, came about in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk’s high-profile, majorly divisive takeover last October, which has already resulted in approximately 3,700 former employees at the company being laid off as part of Musk’s cost-cutting plans, a steep drop in revenue, which Musk blamed on “activist groups pressuring advertisers” and reports that Twitter is skipping out on paying rent for its San Francisco office; the deficit is now, according to a lawsuit filed by the company’s landlord, $136,260.
Musk has long been known to make business decisions that, if assessed generously, could be described as counterintuitive. Others might just call them stupid. According to Guinness World Records, largely due to poor Tesla stock performance, Musk has lost more money—somewhere between $182 billion and $200 billion—than any other person in history.