Do you want an espresso machine once used by a Twitter employee? Or the neon display of its logo? Fans of the social media company have a chance to get their hands on merchandise from the San Francisco headquarters starting Tuesday.
The 27-hour online auction, organized by Heritage Global Partners Inc., marks the latest upheaval at the company, which billionaire Elon Musk acquired for $44 billion last year.
631 lots of “surplus corporate office assets” ranging from industrial-scale kitchen equipment and typical office furniture like whiteboards and desks – to less-than-typical prices for office auctions, such as odd signage and more than 100 boxes of KN95 masks. Also in the mix are some designer chairs, a coffee machine, an iMac and a stationary bike station that can charge devices.
Most items, including corporate memorabilia like a large Twitter bird statue and a “@” symbol statue planter, have starting bids of $25. With about 20 hours left in the auction, the neon logo has received 64 bids for $17,500 – the highest bid so far. The bird statue had 55 bids, pushing the price to $16,000, while the “@” statue had 52 bids for a price of $4,100.
Organizers say the sale is not intended to boost Twitter’s finances. A representative of Heritage Global Partners told fortune magazine last month that “this auction has nothing to do with our financial position.” The auction house does not immediately respond to inquiries sent outside of normal business hours.
Still, more money could be received for Musk, who is trying to radically reduce costs in the company, and failed to pay rent for another San Francisco address, attracting lawsuits. Other offices, including its Asia-Pacific base in Singapore, were also left untouched, with staff there asked to clean up and work from home.
Twitter, which no longer has a media relations team, did not respond to an emailed inquiry from Bloomberg News.
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