X to Sublease San Francisco Headquarters

Sayonara San Francisco? For Elon Musk, X exiting its Mid-Market headquarters could mean waving goodbye to the city by the bay.

X, formerly Twitter, has put up its 800,000-square-foot headquarters up for sublease at 1355 Market Street and 1 Tenth Street, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing confirmation from JLL. The asking rent was not disclosed.

The new listing poised to officially hit the market includes 460,000 square feet of offices at the 87-year-old Art Deco building known as Market Square and an attached, 330,000-square-foot building on Tenth the firm previously put up for sublease.

While the new sublease listing suggests X has more offices than it needs in San Francisco, Musk’s plans for whether to remain anchored in the city aren’t known. In May of last year, the billionaire had signaled his social media company was ready to jump ship.

Landlord Shorenstein Properties, which with JPMorgan Chase owns the Market Square buildings. Neither SHorenstein nor X responded to requests for comment.

JLL brokers Mike Sample, Brittan Hawken and David Churton, who are marketing the properties, declined to disclose whether X is searching for offices elsewhere in town. The brokers are billing Market Square as “one large headquarters opportunity,” but indicated that X may choose to continue to occupy some of its office, according to the Chronicle.

Twitter leased the converted furniture mart on Market Street stretching the length of a city block in 2011, according to the Chronicle. That year, locally based Shorenstein and JPMorgan, based in New York, bought the building for $110 million.

In 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, raising questions about whether it would stay in San Francisco. A year earlier, he moved himself and his Tesla headquarters from California to Texas.

Before the sale was final, Musk floated converting the Twitter hub into a homeless shelter.

Then the controversial CEO changed Twitter’s name to X and swung a scythe to its budget, slashing jobs, trimming offices, missing rent payments and even cutting back on toilet paper.

Musk was cited by the city for converting Market Square offices into bedrooms for employees and for replacing the building’s Twitter sign with a huge illuminated “X,” without proper permits.

Last year, Shorenstein sued X for allegedly falling behind on nearly $7 million in rent at Market Square. The suit was dismissed this year.

On Wednesday, a U.S. court dismissed a lawsuit alleging Musk refused to pay at least $500 million in severance to thousands of fired employees.

Office vacancy in San Francisco hit a record 36.8 percent last quarter, according to CBRE, following a historic shift to remote work.

— Dana Bartholomew