'This is a lie': Elon Musk spars with ex-staffer over Twitter spending $13 million a year on food

Elon Musk claimed that almost no one has been coming to work at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco when the company was spending $400 a year on lunch for each employee.

Elon Musk, who scrapped the free food programme for employees at Twitter, recently faced some opposition from a former staffer who claimed the tech billionaire was lying about the number of employees attending office at the San Francisco headquarters.

The spat began with Musk stating that the free food programme was "bizarre" because "almost no one came to work" and that Twitter paid about $400 for one employee's lunch in a  year.

Especially bizarre given that almost no one came to the office. Estimated cost per lunch served in past 12 months is >$400.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

Elon Musk was then refuted by Tracy Hawkins, a former Twitter staff, who claimed to have run the food programme until she quit a week ago.

"This is a lie. I ran this programme up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn’t want to work for Elon Musk. For breakfast and lunch we spent $20-$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru lunchtime and meetings. Attendance was anything from 20-50 per cent in the offices," she tweeted.

This is a lie. I ran this program up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn’t want to work for @elonmusk For breakfast & lunch we spent $20-$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru lunchtime & mtgs. Attendance was anything from 20-50% in the offices. https://t.co/0OjbeComka — Tracy Hawkins (@_hawko) November 13, 2022

Musk then hit back claiming that while Twitter spends $13 million a year on food service when there were more people preparing the breakfast than those eating it.

False. Twitter spends $13M/year on food service for SF HQ. Badge in records show peak occupancy was 25%, average occupancy below 10%.

There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast. They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

The exchange had Twitter users divided and opened up a debate on whether offices should be offering free food to employees at all.

"In most businesses employees buy their own lunches and work a full shift. Just how lazy and entitled are these staff," commented Alexandra Marshall (@ellymelly).

"That's because in most businesses, employees are abused. If workers have to work long hours and have no time for lunch then that's an easy lawsuit, every employee is supposed to be given time to eat and not blur the lines between work/personal time. The free lunch isn't free," responded The Wooden Lion (@JZamoragarcia).

Read more: No free food, 80-hour weeks: Elon Musk tells Twitter staff in first meeting