King Charles’ estate is suing Twitter over the London rent dispute

Elon Musk’s Twitter is being sued by the Crown Estate after it allegedly failed to pay the rent on its London headquarters.

The estate, which belongs to the King, has filed a lawsuit in the High Court against Twitter and its UK subsidiary.

A Crown Estate spokesman said court proceedings had been launched in the dispute over Twitter’s UK headquarters in the West End.

The Crown Estate manages thousands of acres of Crown-owned land across the UK, including 10 million square feet of land in central London.

It comes after Musk, the world’s second richest man, bought Twitter for $44 billion ($62.6 billion) in October and laid off more than half of its employees. The job cuts, followed by a wave of layoffs, have led to the loss of around 5,000 employees in the past three months. According to Musk, Twitter now employs around 2,300 people, up from 7,400 at the end of October.

Earlier this month, employees at Twitter’s Singapore office were ordered to work from home after the company reportedly failed to pay its rent there on time. All Twitter signs and logos have been removed from London’s Air Street headquarters in Piccadilly Circus, but an employee said the company still has a local presence. Although the social media company signed a £2.6million ($4.6million) a year lease on the third floor in 2021, the dispute is believed to be over Twitter’s first-floor office on the same building rotates. It has been on the ground floor since 2014.

A spokesman for the Crown Estate said it tried to contact Twitter about the alleged rent arrears. Twitter didn’t respond The Telegraph‘s request for comment.

Separately, Elon Musk announced a new ad-free subscription for Twitter, a week after reportedly 500 advertisers left the social media site. The billionaire said in a tweet: “Ads are too common on Twitter and too big. Take action to address both in the coming weeks.