London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

9 tech companies that have ditched San Francisco offices in 2022 are a warning sign for cities to rethink their reliance on big firms

9 tech companies that have ditched San Francisco offices in 2022 are a warning sign for cities to rethink their reliance on big firms

The tech exodus from San Francisco should be a warning to other cities that rely on tech companies to fill downtown office space.
San Francisco's once bustling downtown has become a ghost town as companies have left their offices. The city's office-vacancy rate grew by more than 4 percentage points from November 2021 to November 2022, to about 19%, according to Commercial Observer.

The exodus also is a double-edged sword that threatens San Francisco's financial health. A New York Times report published this month highlighted that local businesses like Mixt, a health-food restaurant, have struggled to maintain their business because high-income workers are no longer flocking downtown for their morning coffee or lunch salad.

Mayor London Breed has estimated that falling commercial property values could contribute to a $728 million budget gap over the next two fiscal years, Bloomberg reported.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Bloomberg that San Francisco needed "more diversity" in its economic and tax base, as well as more residential homes and cultural attractions downtown.

Meanwhile, layoffs have piled up at companies like Adobe, which reportedly laid off 100 employees from its marketing department in early December, and Airtable, which told TechCrunch on December 8 that it had cut 20% of its workforce. This suggests San Francisco's struggles with office vacancies may be far from over.

"The challenge in all of this is that we're kind of rebuilding to something that doesn't necessarily exist," Jeff Bellisario, the executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, told Bloomberg. "What does the new San Francisco look like? And I'm not sure we've totally figured that out yet."
Here's a roundup of major office moves in San Francisco from 2022 that indicate how dire the situation is:

Snap: Snap Inc., the company that owns Snapchat, terminated the lease on its 33,000-square-foot office in October. The company is going through a restructuring, which has included laying off more than 1,200 employees.

Twitter: People close to Twitter told The Times this month that Twitter had stopped paying rent at its headquarters at 1355 Market St. as the company, now run by Elon Musk, seeks to cut costs to improve its profitability. The paper also reported in late November that Twitter's staff dwindled from around 7,500 full-time employees to less than 3,700 since Musk took over in late October. 

Meta: The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported in early December that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was planning to part with its more than 430,000-square-foot office space at 181 Fremont St. despite having eight years left on its lease. Meta leases more than 1.2 million square feet of office space in the San Francisco Bay Area, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors during its third-quarter earnings call that it planned to spend up to $3 billion over the next two years to reduce its total office footprint by buying out leases.

Block: The San Francisco Chronicle reported in June that Block, the payment-processing company owned by Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, did not plan to renew its lease at the end of the year for a 470,000-square-foot office in the Mid-Market neighborhood as the company embraced working from home.

Salesforce: The San Francisco Business Times reported in July that the software behemoth Salesforce was making more than 412,000 square feet of office space in its headquarters available to sublease as the company embraced a strategy it called "Success from anywhere. Careers everywhere."

Airbnb: In September, the short-term-rental giant offered to sublease more than 150,000 square feet of office space in its three-story building in San Francisco's SoMa District, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The company also put more than 300,000 square feet of office space up for sublease in nearby Santa Clara, another Bay Area office hub.

Lyft: The San Francisco Business Times reported in August that the ride-hailing firm Lyft planned to let go of 250,000 square feet of office space at its Berry Street headquarters over the next year, reducing the company's total space leased in the city by more than half.

PayPal: The local news outlet ABC7 reported in April that the digital payments processor PayPal planned to close its Market Street office on June 3, leaving PayPal with no footprint in the city.

Slack: Slack, a corporate-communications company, subleased more than 200,000 square feet of office space at 45 Fremont St. in February as it moved toward a digital-first working environment, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The report said the company still held a lease at 500 Howard St., near Salesforce's headquarters.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
×