Crown Estates sues Twitter over unpaid rent of its Piccadilly Circus HQ

Twitter is being sued by the Crown Estates over unpaid rent relating to its Piccadilly Circus-based headquarters building.

The Crown Estates manages property for King Charles III and the monarchy, which includes the 10m sq Twitter headquarters in central London.

The estate filed the claim against Twitter Inc, which is also facing legal action over unpaid dues on its San Francisco office, and its UK subsidiary in the High Court earlier this month Twitter

A Crown Estate spokesman confirmed court proceedings had been issued in a dispute over the company’s UK headquarters in the West End and that no further comment was available.

The lawsuit is likely to add to Twitter’s woes, which have followed in the wake of Elon Musk’s controversial takeover of the social media platform.

Since the takeover last October the company has fired over half its employees and advertisers have left the platform en masse expressing concerns over policy changes and an increase in hate speech.

Christopher Budd, a senior cyber threat analyst for Sophos, told City A.M . that it was “the time to assume a brace position for a possible crash of Twitter.”

Musk has indicated that the company is working with a skeleton staff, and the mass firing in international offices (including Brussels) has raised concerns for user security.

Recently, thousands of users, including high profile UK politicians found their Twitter security had been breached.

Richard Forrest, the legal director of UK data breach safety firm Hayes Connor told City A.M . it was concerning that Musk had not responded to safety concerns.

“The public puts a lot of trust in social media platforms such as Twitter, with the expectation that their data is going to be handled securely,” he said.