X/Twitter To Sublease 800,000 Square Feet Of San Francisco HQ

Multiple media sites confirmed on Thursday that X, formerly Twitter, is looking to sublease its 800,000-square-foot headquarters at 1355 Market Street and 1 Tenth Street, indicating a possible outside of San Francisco soon.

X moving outside of San Francisco has long been rumored, dating back to when Musk first officially bought the social media site in October 2022 for $44 billion. Upon buying the company, many in Texas, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott urged him to move the company there, much like what he did with his electric car company Tesla. Many in the company also began questioning if X had long in San Francisco, due to Musk often clashing with San Francisco’s politics. Mass firings at X afterwards only worried people more of a move.

In May of 2023, Musk began hinting more seriously of such a move, and actions the city made against the company, like forcing them to take down a new sign off their headquarters building, only raised fears once again. In May of this year, he remained non-committal in staying in the city, dodging questions if he was planning to keep X in San Francisco. This month, Musk and X made their biggest move yet by having a firm putting a sublease up for all their office space in the city, indicating a possible move from their HQ, which they had been located in since 2011.

A possible move for X

While the space has not been listed yet, Real estate company JLL confirmed on Thursday that X has put its 800,000-square-foot headquarters up for sublease at 1355 Market Street and 1 Tenth Street for an undisclosed amount. They didn’t say whether or not the company was looking for new offices in San Francisco, and indicated that X could choose to remain partially there. While X has backed out of possible moves before, the last time it backed out they had only been contemplating a move across the Bay into Oakland.

Should San Francisco move out, it will likely destroy San Francisco’s plans to level out this year on stopping the city have an even worse office vacancy percentage. In Q2 2024, San Francisco slid into have 37% of all of the office space in the city be vacant. Thanks to the AI boom though, the city has begun to level out this year. If X moved out, San Francisco would likely not recover for the rest of the year due to so much space suddenly being listed.

“The subleasing announcement is very worrying,” explained  Anthony Ferry, a San Francisco tech consultant, to the Globe on Friday. “At least if you work for X or are in San Francisco. “It’s indicating a big shift of some kind. Best case scenario, they are just shifting to other locations in the city or are embracing work from home even more. Worst case scenario, X will no longer be in the city.”

“For the state, would lose out on a lot of tax money if they left California, they could hope that X is looking at a cheaper office space in the Bay Area, or even looking at LA. SpaceX is down there after all. But that’s wishful thinking. If anything, it will probably be Texas where musk is now, likely the Austin area. You know, but we just don’t know. First we need to find out if they are staying in their current HQ in any capacity. Second, people need to ask Musk what his plans are since the cat is out of the bag now. But he isn’t talking, and nothing is really being hinted otherwise.”

“What is for certain is that something big is happening.”

More on the X subleasing is expected to be announced soon.