Elon Musk's giant ‘X’ sign on Twitter's San Francisco office has been taken down just days after it went up
A huge “X” sign atop the headquarters of Elon Musk’s social media company in San Francisco has been removed following complaints from local residents.
Construction workers were seen dismantling the sign—an emblem of Twitter’s recent major rebrand—before it was taken down on Monday.
The sign’s removal came just three days after it was erected on the roof of the building on San Francisco’s Market Street.
Our HQ in San Francisco tonight pic.twitter.com/VQO2NoX9Tz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2023
The city’s Department of Building Inspection and City Planning said that by Monday afternoon, it had logged 24 complaints about the sign.
On Monday, Fortune reported that Musk had denied San Francisco building inspectors access to Twitter headquarters to evaluate the safety of the company’s new X sign.
A spokesperson for X was not immediately available when contacted by Fortune.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Aside from disturbing its neighbors, the rebranding of Twitter’s offices to X HQ has also been the source of disputes between Musk’s company and local authorities.
The city of San Francisco launched an investigation into the sign shortly after it appeared above X HQ last week, with officials saying the replacement of letters or symbols on buildings—or putting a sign on top of a building—required a specific permit for design and safety reasons.
According to a complaint filed by an inspector, X did not have a permit for the work.
CBS reported the property owners will be billed for permit fees for the sign’s installation and removal as well as the costs of the city’s investigation.
The complaint came after police temporarily halted the removal of Twitter’s retired bird logo from the side of the building on July 24, with the crane being used to carry out the work reportedly obstructing traffic and reports being filed of a possible unpermitted street closure.
“As for Twitter and what’s happening there, I think the challenge we’re running into is no one can be above the rules,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed told Bloomberg last week. “No one minds that you want to do something different and creative with your space, but you can’t just do it like changing your sign, obstructing traffic and not even asking anyone for a permit.”
In a separate statement on Monday, Breed’s office said that X represented just “one thing” in San Francisco, and that the publicity the company garnered came at the expense of many other “important parts of our city that hardly get any attention.”
The mayor’s office added that the city would “continue to stay engaged with the property owner of the building to ensure they follow the city’s process for timely notifications, permit requests, and other procedural matters.”
Musk vs. San Francisco
The disagreements between X and city officials are the latest in a series of publicly aired grievances between Musk and San Francisco.
Musk himself has long been an outspoken critic of the city, labeling downtown San Francisco a “disaster” and likening it to “a derelict zombie apocalypse.”
He has also spoken out about crime in the city, claiming earlier this year that many Twitter employees “feel unsafe coming to work” and had had their car windows smashed while they were parked outside the office.
In recent years, San Francisco has faced a crisis of violent crime, drug abuse, and homelessness that has drawn criticism from many prominent members of the city’s tech community.
In the wake of the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco last April, Musk tweeted that many people he knew had been “severely assaulted” in the city.
His comments received backlash from San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins, who slammed Musk’s take on the case as “reckless and irresponsible” after an acquaintance of Lee was arrested as a suspect in the murder.
Earlier this year, Twitter was sued for allegedly failing to pay rent on its offices in London and San Francisco.
Despite his criticisms of the city, however, Musk has pledged X’s loyalty to the tech hub, revealing this week that the firm would remain in San Francisco despite other areas attempting to lure the company into a relocation.
“The city is in a doom spiral with one company after another [having] left or leaving. Therefore, they expect X will move too,” Musk said. “We will not … San Francisco, beautiful San Francisco, though others forsake you, we will always be your friend.”