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San Francisco officials weigh in on departure of X headquarters: 'Good riddance'
- underseacables 2y agoSan Francisco has been saying good riddance to a lot of good companies for a while now. Maybe not out loud, but certainly through their policies have they driven away a lot of business. Downtown is a ghost town now.
- sien 2y agoAre they starting to move people on now in San Francisco ? With the Grants Pass vs Johnson decision ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Grants_Pass_v._Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Grants_Pass_v._Johnson ) it seems like it is now possible. Is there any change in other places under the jurisdiction of the ninth circuit court ?
- bobthepanda 2y agoI am not sure about SF, but there is tension in LA now because Newsom is doing sweeps on state owned land and has pressured LA officials to do sweeps, which they are against.
- akdhG 2y ago[flagged]
- whateveracct 2y ago[flagged]
- whall6 2y agoWhy insist on making enemies? Even if it is Elon Musk. How hard is it to just ignore the question?
- jmclnx 2y agoI wonder if this move is also a "hidden layoff", that is where he will say "Move to TX or quit, your choice". Also if an employee moves to TX, will they get moving expenses ?
- nehal3m 2y agoI'm not from the US. What if you choose not to quit but not to move either? Would they have to fire you so you can get unemployment benefits?
- datavirtue 2y agoYou get them regardless. The fault is on the employer for moving.
- ceejayoz 2y agoGenerally that'd be a form of constructive dismissal, which would be similar to a firing for unemployment purposes.
- andsoitis 2y agoX isn’t moving to Texas. They’re relocating to San Jose and Palo Alto, which is 40 - 60 mins or so south of San Francisco. https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/x-closing-san-francisco-hq-relocating-staffers-san-jose-palo-alto-shared-space-with-x-ai-linda-yaccarino-leaked-email/ https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/x-closing-san-francisco-hq-re...
- dylan604 2y agoFor any San Francisco person moving to Texas, the coldest winter will not be a summer here.
- BurningFrog 2y agoElon already got rid of 80-90% of the original employees. I doubt he'll start sugar coating it now.
- mjfl 2y agoThis is like Saudi Arabia pretending to say 'good riddance' to oil. What are you going to do when it's all gone?
- ceejayoz 2y agoTwitter already laid off 80-90% of staff. It was already almost all gone, from SF's perspective.
- TechnicolorByte 2y agoComparing X, which is one company (with a far reduced headcount and much smaller revenues compared to pre-Elon) in a tech hub city to an entire oil industry in an oil-rich state seems beyond hyperbolic.
- mjfl 2y agooil is tech, in my analogy. You know what I meant. You can't possibly be that autistic.
- DonHopkins 2y agoAre you saying that Elon Musk is oily?
- Anonbrit 2y agoRancid and greasy
- flounderatwork 2y ago[flagged]
- hindsightbias 2y agoParty like it’s 2011 agian, before the dumb supes gave them a tax break not to move and it all went to crap.
- 2y ago
- joemazerino 2y agoThe residual damage from large companies moving out of downtown cores seem to be lost on the local politicians. They will say everything is fine as the service industry meant to sustain companies evaporate.
- talldayo 2y agoTo the contrary, the damage of displacing their core service workers with overpaid startup employees can't go on forever. Pumping more money into the city isn't going to change the core issue, and businesses are starting to realize that they are the problem.
- science4sail 2y agoThere are only two ways for a city to relieve a housing shortage: either build more housing or make the city less desirable to live in. SF has decided that the first is impossible, so they're going with the second.
- atleastoptimal 2y agoSan Francisco needs to get its act together. Richest, smartest city in the US, perhaps the planet, and its downtown is barely habitable, and development/improvement is relegated to very exclusive rich areas.
- s5300 2y ago[dead]
- crooked-v 2y agoI think you can sum up almost all of SF's instituional issues with the fact that as of June this year, they'd approved 16 new housing units, total, for the entire city (https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-only-agreed-build-16-homes-this-year-1907831 https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-only-agreed-build-16-...).
- rufus_foreman 2y agoThe population of SF has declined 7% since 2020. With a population decline that steep, can't they just maintain the housing units they have?
- trilbyglens 2y agoI'm sure the deficit far far exceeds 7%
- pfisherman 2y agoDowntown has never been where the bulk of the ppl in SF live or hang out. It is for the “bridge and tunnel crowd” —- mostly offices and businesses; and not meant to be habitable.
- xyst 2y agoThis is quite sad and indicative of how poorly planned the city is due to car centric transportation and car culture.
- wrs 2y agoThat's not the definition of "gross receipts". Perhaps Elon thinks he's too smart to ask an actual accountant, or perhaps he's mad about the "Overpaid Executive" surcharge on the gross receipts tax. [0] [0] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/overpaid-executive-tax-oe https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/overpaid-executi...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- coolhand2120 2y agoMy company HQ is in SF still, not sure how much longer. I get to visit downtown fairly frequently. SF is so bad today that people just leave their car windows open lest some thief accidently believe they had the audacity to lock their cars. Many major retailers that I was used to seeing downtown have left. The criminals and homeless run the show in SF. Really sad to see how far it has gone in such a short period of time. I'm not sure why X is leaving, but X is just another company in a long list of companies. Often they'll take with them the people who worked there, then there's just that many fewer functional citizens as a percentage in the city. When does it become a vicious cycle?
- 650REDHAIR 2y agoI’m downtown SF all day every day. I’m all over the city all day every day. I never see windows down. What are you talking about?
- infotainment 2y agoShh, you’re not allowed to say anything positive about SF, you’ll interrupt the ancient and sacred internet ceremony of people-who-don’t-live-in-SF-talking-about-how-horrible-SF-is.
- 650REDHAIR 2y agoIt’s wild because SF has its fair share of problems… we don’t need to make shit up!
- more_corn 2y agoMy buddy lives in Oakland. We park and walk around lake Merritt. He always leaves the windows down. His have been smashed four times. Oakland is not SF, but the practice isn’t unheard of.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoLast time I was in Oakland to do some volunteer work, the airport car rental staff said “don’t stop until you’re 20 min away from the airport.” When I had dinner with a friend in Piedmont and left her apartment after midnight, she said “you might get mugged on the way back to your car, sorry about that” which was half a mile away. It boggles the mind.
- big-green-man 2y agoThat's the spirit! Keep doubling down! Never admit that you've made a mistake!
- browningstreet 2y agoThe SF problems exist in a lot of American places. Hard not to think that American governance plus American culture are both a bit broken. Without a social safety net, the troubled and in-trouble layers of our society can’t find a hold for recovery. I’m in SF right now. It’s a lovely place across many dimensions. But when the bus dropped me off near Civic Center and City Hall, I had to walk through and around a crowd that is in need of help. My office used to be at 8th and Howard. I had to walk around the troubles. My employees would sob after wading in. The hardened part of me thinks “the addicts on the street have done this to themselves”, and the supportive part of me says “other places have figured out the minimum viable social safety net” to avoid the worst of it. Hard to believe that a Whole Foods went into a giant residential development center and no one could figure out how not to lose it. EDIT: Amending with the following thoughts: Cities and states will struggle to solve problems that need to be built at the federal level. Social support infrastructure for medical, unemployment, housing. Lose your job? Here and now you’ll be losing health insurance immediately and eventually housing. Other places have paid up to mitigate that and have lower levels of our acute issues. Going into the future, with climate change, California will someday carry greater recognition that among the biggest and greatest cities on the planet, SF and LA arguably have the best weather and by quite a huge margin. I love NYC and Berlin and Singapore, but their weather sucks compared to the west coast’s. We’re beyond lucky and we act/vote selfishly and NIH/NIMBYish.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago>Hard to believe that a Whole Foods went into a giant residential development center and no one could figure out how not to lose it. As in went out of business?
- browningstreet 2y agohttps://time.com/6270788/whole-foods-san-francisco-closing/ https://time.com/6270788/whole-foods-san-francisco-closing/
- babyshake 2y ago> “the addicts on the street have done this to themselves” In many/most of these cases, whether it is because of nurture or nature, the situation is more complex than simply "you did this to yourself".