Elon Musk keeps making big changes on Twitter. Now, workers who survived the wave of layoffs, which saw half the company’s workforce cut slashes, will have to pay for their own meals because the billionaire will end up with a benefit where Twitter pays them food, which cost him $13 million dollars a year.
The billionaire said he will eliminate free meals served at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters because it was costing the company about $400 per worker.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion last month and quickly laid off about half of the workforce, which totaled 7,500 people.
Musk also proceeded to order all workers back to the offices.
Musk took to Twitter on Sunday to say that offering free meals in the company cafeteria had become untenable because hardly anyone came to the office.
Musk estimated that the free meals cost the company about $13 million a year.
A Twitter employee, who resigned after Musk took office, denied these claims by the millionaire, saying the free meals cost the company no more than $25 per person per day.
“This is a lie. I ran this show until a week ago when I quit because I didn’t want to work for @elonmusk,” the worker, named Tracy Hawkins, who was a former vice president of workplace transformation at Twitter, tweeted.
“For breakfast and lunch we spend between $20 and $25 per day per person. This allowed employees to work during lunch breaks and meetings. Attendance was 20% to 50% in the offices,” added Hawkins.
Musk responded by saying that company records indicate office occupancy peaked at 25%, averaging around 10%.
“There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast. They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there’s no one in the building.Musk said.
Musk’s decision to charge for food sparked a debate on Twitter, with many accusing the mogul of trying to starve his employees, in his own words.
“He fired 3/4 of the employees. He now plans to starve the rest, ”said a user on the social network.
Others, however, pointed out that free lunch is not a perk that is given in most offices, or even in tech companies.
“Does anyone really think that companies that don’t provide free lunch are ‘starving’ their employees? I’ve never worked anywhere where lunch was free, but somehow I survived”, tweeted one user, according to the New York Post.