Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who is infamous for posting a lot of nonsense on Twitter: Meme Dogecoin, 420 jokes and "erratic" comments about his own company got him into trouble with shareholders and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
But last Sunday, after holding 9.2% stake of Twitter, Elon Musk came up with a seemingly reckless idea: Turning Twitter's headquarters in downtown San Francisco into a homeless shelter.
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| Elon Musk |
Bloomberg's CityLab author Sarah Holder wrote that "the now-deleted tweet was seen as a sarcasm to the city of San Francisco, where already grappling with homelessness crisis" and at Twitter, where company employees have been told that they can do telework forever. As a result, the building should be used as housing for the homeless, Musk seems to imply, "because nobody's showing up here anyway."
There is no indication that Twitter will convert its building into a homeless shelter and, anyway, Twitter is unlikely to do so. But, converting vacant office buildings into residential units in cities like San Francisco has previously been suggested as a way to make more efficient use of existing units to address housing supplies and reusing vacant Central Business Districts.
In reality, converting Twitter's offices into permanent affordable housing would be complicated but "completely doable" from a management perspective, according to Dan Sider, director of the San Francisco Department of Planning. And converting the building into a homeless shelter, he said, "would be pretty straightforward."
It's less likely that there's political will or financial incentive to embark on such a mission, especially given the fact Twitter has begun reusing the building for office work. But with Musk offering to buy Twitter, that could change. And with a homeless population of more than 9,800 as of the end of 2019 and an office vacancy rate of 22.6% by the end of 2021, it probably isn't too ridiculous to put up with the idea.
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