© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Photo of Elon Musk is seen through a Twitter logo in this illustration dated October 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
By Jonathan Stamp
(Reuters) – A former Twitter PR firm sued the social media company on Friday, saying it has failed to pay its bills since Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition.
Joele Frank said Twitter owes $830,498 consisting of six unpaid bills plus the cost of a subpoena in Twitter’s lawsuit to force Musk to complete the acquisition aCentre County Reporter he tried to pull out.
The PR firm said Twitter terminated its contract on Nov. 16, three weeks aCentre County Reporter the acquisition closed, and is no longer communicating about its payment request, aside from an automated promise to “start processing immediately.”
Twitter, also known as X Corp, no longer has a media relations office. A request for comment on the lawsuit was met with a feces emoji. A lawyer for Musk, who copied this request, did not immediately respond.
According to his lawsuit in a New York state court in Manhattan, Joele Frank began working for Twitter in January 2015.
Many landlords, vendors, and consultants have sued Twitter over unpaid bills Musk inherited when he bought the company before implementing deep cost cuts.
Twitter is also being sued in Delaware by three former executives, including Parag Agrawal, who Musk ousted as CEO, saying the company failed to meet its obligations to recover more than $1 million in legal fees.
Musk said Twitter could generate positive cash flow as early as this quarter, despite a drop in ad revenue.
The world’s second-richest person, who also runs electric-car maker Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc., estimates Twitter has lost more than half of its value since the purchase, according to published reports.
The case is JF Associates LLC v. X Corp, New York State Supreme Court, New York County.
