ツイッター社備品が競売に　ロゴの「鳥」オブジェに１３００万円

【サンフランシスコＡＦＰ＝時事】米サンフランシスコのツイッター本社の家具や装飾品、調理器具など備品が１９日、オンラインで競売に掛けられた。約２４時間にわたって開催されたオークションでは、同社ロゴの「鳥」をかたどったオブジェが１０万ドル（約１３００万円）で落札された。（写真はイーロン・マスク氏と同社のロゴ）
　競売を取り仕切ったヘリテージ・グローバル・パートナーズによると、ロゴの鳥の形をした３メートルほどのネオンサインも４万ドル（約５１０万円）で落札された。
　その他、エスプレッソマシン、人間工学的にデザインされたデスク、テレビ、自転車で発電する充電ステーション、ピザ窯、「＠」の形をしたプランターなど全６３１点が出品された。
　ツイッターを４４０億ドル（約５兆６０００億円）で買収したイーロン・マスク氏は、これまでも「必死にコスト削減をしている」と話した。
　ツイッター買収から数週間後、マスク氏は７５００人いた同社従業員の約半数を解雇。不適切な投稿をチェックする人員が不足するとの懸念のほか、各国政府や広告主の動揺を招いた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/01/20-12:46）

A Twitter bird statue fetched $100,000 on Wednesday as Elon Musk auctioned off furniture, decorations, kitchen equipment and more from the tech firm's downtown San Francisco headquarters.
An online auction of surplus corporate office assets of Twitter that lasted slightly more than 24 hours also featured a 10-foot neon light in the shape of Twitter's bird logo, which brought in a winning bid of $40,000, Heritage Global Partners auction service confirmed.
Among the 631 lots were espresso machines, ergonomically correct desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens and a decorative planter shaped like an @ sign.
Musk in December said that severe cost cuts at Twitter had repaired the company's dire finances as he set out to find a new CEO for his troubled social media platform.
The mercurial billionaire told a live chat forum at the time that without the changes, including firing over half of Twitter's employees, the company would have bled $3 billion a year.
Musk said he had been cutting costs like crazy at the platform he bought for $44 billion.
Just weeks into his ownership of Twitter, Musk fired about half of its 7,500-strong workforce, sparking concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.
Musk said his strategy was to massively reduce costs while building up revenue, and that a new subscription service called Twitter Blue, which grants users a sought-after blue tick for a fee, would help reach that goal.
The service costs $11 a month in the United States and is available on Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems, according to a page on the company's website.
Web subscriptions are also available for $8 per month or, at a discount, $84 per year.
Twitter Blue is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.
Musk-led Twitter has been riven by chaos, with mass layoffs, the return of banned accounts and the suspension of journalists critical of the South African-born billionaire.
Musk's takeover also saw a surge in racist or hateful tweets, drawing scrutiny from regulators and chasing away big advertisers, Twitter's main source of revenue.