London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Jun 20, 2025

Twitter Got A Big Tax Break To Stay In San Francisco. Jack Dorsey Now Says Its Future Is No Longer In The City.

Twitter Got A Big Tax Break To Stay In San Francisco. Jack Dorsey Now Says Its Future Is No Longer In The City.

As Twitter's home city nears a vote limiting new office space construction, the company may be forced to locate its workforce elsewhere.
Nine years ago, San Francisco gave Twitter a major, controversial tax break to stay in the city, locating the social media company’s headquarters in the bleak mid-Market neighborhood. But today, after taking the money, Twitter is putting San Francisco on mute as it plans to expand outside of the city.

“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on an earnings call Thursday. “We have to build a company that’s not entirely dependent on San Francisco.”

“Sounds like something Jack would say,” San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a frequent critic of the tech industry and one of the leaders of the board’s progressive faction, told BuzzFeed News. “Apparently, the only thing serving Twitter anymore is Donald Trump.”

When they introduced the Twitter tax break, politicians hoped it would revitalize the neighborhood and attract jobs to a city whose unemployment rate was several multiples above where it is today, nearing 10% in 2010.

As the city’s politics lurch leftward — unlike when the tax passed, Peskin’s faction now controls of the Board of Supervisors and the city will vote on a proposition limiting new office space construction in March — Twitter, which took tens of millions in tax incentives throughout the decade, is planning to spread its workforce across the globe. In recent years, the centrist policies championed by former mayors like Ed Lee have given way to an anti-corporate wave, including the election of a democratic socialist to the board in 2019, mirroring a change in the national Democratic party.

After the tax break expired as planned last May, there was little appetite in San Francisco to renew it. San Francisco voters also approved a ballot measure in 2018 that required companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue to pay an additional tax to help people who are homeless. Dorsey opposed the measure, saying it treated companies like Dorsey’s company Square unfairly compared to ones like Salesforce, whose CEO Marc Benioff backed it, and Square later sued the city over its tax bill.

Critics of Twitter’s tax break saw Dorsey’s comments on Thursday as a validation of their skepticism. “I'm not surprised to hear that they're not really prioritizing their presence in San Francisco,” David Campos, a former San Francisco supervisor who voted against the tax break when he was on the board in 2011, told BuzzFeed News. “I'm not surprised that they essentially benefited from a very generous tax policy by city government, only to turn around and say San Francisco is not a priority for us. Unfortunately, it's what many of us suspected.”

Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said Dorsey’s statement was somewhat concerning. “It reinforces the fact that the city's had a challenge in keeping large companies in the city as they grow,” he told BuzzFeed News. To Egan, it was not a complete surprise, given the high price of doing business in the Bay Area, which faces skyrocketing housing costs. “It's not unexpected that a major tech company would choose to have a distributed workforce or grow globally, particularly when the cost of living differences between San Francisco and many other places are continuing to widen.”

Despite Dorsey’s announcement, it’s unclear how fast Twitter’s employee base will shift from the city, and finding the type of workers it’s looking for in other places may be its biggest challenge: Once an economic cluster is established, it’s hard to move. “This issue has been brought up many times in the past. But it's a very niche labor market,” Enrico Moretti, a University of California, Berkeley, economics professor and the author of The New Geography of Jobs, told BuzzFeed News. “Ultimately, the type of occupations that lend themselves to remote work is not huge.”

Twitter doesn’t predict a mass exodus anytime soon. “San Francisco will be where the majority of our employees will be based for the foreseeable future,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News following Dorsey’s comments. “There's incredible talent around the world and we have to be able to work in a way that supports them as employees regardless of where they live, especially when they want to build careers in their own communities.”

Not all observers were opposed to the move. “There's always blowback,” said Anna Auerbach, cofounder and co-CEO of Werk, an analytics company that enables flexible work. The benefits, she said, will outweigh the costs. “It's going to help Twitter attract a really incredible talent pool, a really diverse talent pool, and my hunch is, they're going to see some really fundamental changes when it comes to productivity improvements and culture and retention.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
16 Billion Login Credentials Leaked in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Breach
Senate hearing on who was 'really running' Biden White House kicks off
Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect
FBI and Senate Investigate Allegations of Chinese Plot to Influence the 2020 Election in Biden’s Favor Using Fake U.S. Driver’s Licenses
Vietnam Emerges as Luxury Yacht Destination for Ultra‑Rich
Plans to Sell Dutch Embassy in Bangkok Face Local Opposition
China's Iranian Oil Imports Face Disruption Amid Escalating Middle East Tensions
Trump's $5 Million 'Trump Card' Visa Program Draws Nearly 70,000 Applicants
DGCA Finds No Major Safety Concerns in Air India's Boeing 787 Fleet
Airlines Reroute Flights Amid Expanding Middle East Conflict Zones
Elon Musk's xAI Seeks $9.3 Billion in Funding Amid AI Expansion
Trump Demands Iran's Unconditional Surrender Amid Escalating Conflict
Israeli Airstrike Targets Iranian State TV in Central Tehran
President Trump is leaving the G7 summit early and has ordered the National Security Council to the Situation Room
Taiwan Imposes Export Ban on Chips to Huawei and SMIC
Israel has just announced plans to strike Tehran again, and in response, Trump has urged people to evacuate
Netanyahu Signals Potential Regime Change in Iran
Juncker Criticizes EU Inaction on Trump Tariffs
EU Proposes Ban on New Russian Gas Contracts
Analysts Warn Iran May Resort to Unconventional Warfare
Iranian Regime Faces Existential Threat Amid Conflict
Energy Infrastructure Becomes War Zone in Middle East
UK Home Secretary Apologizes Over Child Grooming Failures
Trump Organization Launches 5G Mobile Network and Golden Handset
Towcester Hosts 2025 English Greyhound Derby Amid Industry Scrutiny
Gary Oldman and David Beckham Knighted in King's Birthday Honours
Over 30,000 Lightning Strikes Recorded Across UK During Overnight Storms
Princess of Wales Returns to Public Duties at Trooping the Colour
Red Arrows Use Sustainable Fuel in Historic Trooping the Colour Flypast
Former Welsh First Minister Addresses Unionist Concerns Over Irish Language
Iran Signals Openness to Nuclear Negotiations Amid Ongoing Regional Tensions
France Bars Israeli Arms Companies from Paris Defense Expo
King Charles Leads Tribute to Air India Crash Victims at Trooping the Colour
Jack Pitchford Embarks on 200-Mile Walk to Support Stem Cell Charity
Surrey Hikers Take on Challenge of Climbing 11 Peaks in a Single Day
UK Deploys RAF Jets to Middle East Amid Israel-Iran Tensions
Two Skydivers Die in 'Tragic Accident' at Devon Airfield
Sainsbury's and Morrisons Accused of Displaying Prohibited Tobacco Ads
UK Launches National Inquiry into Grooming Gangs
Families Seek Closure After Air India Crash
Gold Emerges as Global Safe Haven Amid Uncertainty
Trump Reports $57 Million Earnings from Crypto Venture
Trump's Military Parade Sparks Concerns Over Authoritarianism
Nationwide 'No Kings' Protests Challenge Trump's Leadership
UK Deploys Jets to Middle East Amid Rising Tensions
Trump's Anti-War Stance Tested Amid Israel-Iran Conflict
Germany Holds First Veterans Celebration Since WWII
U.S. Health Secretary Dismisses CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee
Minnesota Lawmaker Melissa Hortman and Husband Killed in Targeted Attack; Senator John Hoffman and Wife Injured
Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi Urges Overthrow of Khamenei Regime
×