San Francisco investigating Twitter for adding beds to office rooms, report says

‘We need to make sure the building is being used as intended,’ says Department of Building Inspection spokesperson

City officials in San Francisco are following a complaint to investigate Twitter for adding beds to office rooms at the company’s headquarters, reportedly registered as a commercial building.

Conference rooms in Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco have been converted into sleeping quarters, an apparent move for the remainder of the social media giant’s “hardcore” staffers to stay overnight, Forbes had reported on Monday.

Following the report, a Twitter user filed a complaint on the microblogging platform with the city’s SF311 customer service centre.

“Wonder how much office can be converted to ‘bedrooms’ before it runs afoul of San Francisco code or at least requires a permit and inspections,” one Twitter user noted.

Twitter has not applied for permits to use portions of its office building for residential purposes, according to The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.

The city’s SF311 service tweeted that the issue has been reported to the Department of Building Inspection, which also confirmed to media outlets that it is investigating the matter.

“We need to make sure the building is being used as intended,” a spokesperson for the department told The Washington Post, adding that a notice of violation will be issued if the building codes are not met.

In an update on Wednesday, the SF311 website noted it had conducted a site visit.

“Conducted site visit with SF planning. Access was provided to 9th floor and portions of the 8th floor. Observed a bed in two rooms on the 8th floor, Further investigation required,” it said.

Since taking over Twitter, new boss Elon Musk has openly admitted that he hopes to extract the most from the social media company’s remaining employees.

After slashing Twitter’s workforce by over half, laying off 3,700 of its employees with little explanation for their departure, Mr Musk said in a since-deleted tweet that he was planning to pull all-nighters at the San Francisco offices “until the org is fixed”.

In his visions for the company, which the multibillionaire laid out in a presentation, Mr Musk said the new focus was on “Twitter 2.0”.

He urged the staff to commit to “hardcore” working conditions if they wanted to work at the company – or to stop doing so.

The remaining employees were told that they needed to work long and intensive work hours to keep the company going.

Last month, one of the company’s leaders in charge of early-stage products, tweeted that she slept on her office floor to meet deadlines.

“When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you sleep where you work,” she tweeted.

Mr Musk took to the social media platform and responded to the news of on-site inspection.

“So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities?” he tweeted, tagging the city’s mayor and linking to a story on the reported fentanyl overdose of a 10-month-old baby.