Twitter bird logo statue snapped up for $100,000 as owner Elon Musk auctions off items from tech firm's HQ
19 January 2023, 15:55 | Updated: 19 January 2023, 15:57
A statue of Twitter's famous bird logo has been snapped up for $100,000 as owner Elon Musk auctioned off items from the tech firm's San Francisco HQ online.
The tech billionaire sold 631 items including furniture, kitchen equipment and decorations in an 27-hour online auction of 'surplus corporate office assets of Twitter' on Wednesday after it was revealed Twitter's revenue had dropped 40 percent in a year.
The bird statue - which stands at 3.5ft - was the priciest purchase in the auction, despite having a starting bid of just $25, according to a Twitter user.
The company's revenue is 40 per cent from a year ago and over 500 advertisers have paused spending with Twitter since Elon Musk took over the company in October.
The entrepreneur said last month that he was putting items from the company up for sale, claiming that he wanted to clear out 'woke' supplies from the firm's headquarters.
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The sale also included a 10ft neon light in the shape the firm's iconic logo, which was won with a bid of $40,000, Heritage Global Partners auction service confirmed.
Among the hundreds of lots were a decorative planter in the shape of an '@' sign, ergonomically correct desks, pizza ovens, espresso machines, bicycle-powered charging stations.
Last month, Mr Musk said that severe cost cutting at the tech giant had repaired its finances as he set out to find a new chief executive for the platform.
At the time he told a live chat forum that without the changes, which included firing over half of the company's workforce, Twitter would have lost $3billion in a year.
But insiders told tech newsletter Platformer that the Twitter's daily revenue on January 17 was 40 percent lower than the same day the year before.
The company which was bought by Mr Musk for $44bn last year generated $1.2billion in revenue, equivalent to $13.3million a day, the first quarter of 2022.
But Nick Dove, a representative of Heritage Global Partners, which is administering the auction, told Fortune magazine the sale had nothing to do attempting to make up for the shortfall.
"If anyone genuinely thinks that the revenue from selling a couple computers and chairs will pay for the mountain there, then they're a moron," he said.
