California Mayor Slams Elon Musk Over Tax Breaks, Says He 'Decided to Take That Money and Run' San Francisco Mayor London Breed was not thrilled with the billionaire's criticism of the city.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Elon Musk has made a bit of a habit of upsetting people in positions of power, and the mayor of San Francisco's latest comments on the billionaire were not exactly flattering.
Mayor London Breed spoke with Bloomberg about the city's future plans to move away from its reputation as the tech hub of the country, noting that the shift to remote work and flexibility after the pandemic has made this pivot somewhat inevitable.
One company that has a large presence in the city is Twitter, the social media platform that Musk is involved in a complicated legal battle with after he attempted to back out of his $44 billion bid to purchase the company before reportedly deciding to proceed with the purchase, after all, earlier this month.
Musk has been critical of Twitter's office space in San Francisco, suggesting that the building be converted into a homeless shelter after pointing out that many employees don't go into the office.
The concept of remote work is something Musk has strongly discouraged within Tesla, which moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas away from San Francisco.
Noting this, Breed referred to Musk as "the person who got a ton of tax breaks in California and decided to take that money and run," before making another dig that she hopes that "those who are critical would focus on trying to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem."
Safe to say Musk won't be receiving any tax breaks in the city any time soon.
Musk has continued to poke to bear amid the Twitter battle after responding to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on the platform who asked the billionaire to "please fix these bots" after claiming that he was "getting bot'd to death."
Musk's primary reason for trying to back out of the Twitter purchase in the first place was due to claims that Twitter was not being forthright and honest about the number of bot and spam accounts currently operating on the platform.
"I have a plan," Musk cryptically responded to Portnoy, who then said, "Thank God."
Will it ever end?
Twitter was down just over 21% in a one-year period as of Tuesday morning.
