- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez wishes Twitter to relocate from San Francisco to Miami.
- He explained to Insider he has arrived at out to individuals shut to Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
- Suarez and Musk have not experienced a discussion about it nevertheless, the mayor explained.
MIAMI, FL — Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has not provided up on making an attempt to entice Twitter away from San Francisco.
“I imagine they belong listed here,” Suarez advised Insider all through an interview with Insider on Wednesday at City Hall. “I believe that their rebranding matches our city, which is a city that places a high quality on liberty and flexibility of expression.”
Suarez publicly urged Twitter to transfer its headquarters to Miami by tweeting the suggestion to CEO Elon Musk at the commencing of December.
But Musk, a single of the world’s richest people who is also CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has not gotten again to Suarez even however the mayor tried using to access him via several channels. The two have still to have a phone connect with about the prospect, Suarez reported.
“I have reached out to him through several unique resources of folks that I know are close to him, persons that are pals of his, previous board members of his providers, persons that are helping him with the venture,” Suarez mentioned. “I haven’t listened to again yet. Obviously, it can be a hyper-complex situation with all the things that is going on.”
Suarez proposed relocating the business headquarters from San Francisco just after Forbes claimed that town building inspectors launched an investigation into reviews that Twitter converted numerous place of work rooms at its headquarters into bedrooms so personnel could operate prolonged hrs and rest there.
Musk tweeted about the news and questioned San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s priorities.
“So city of SF attacks providers delivering beds for weary workforce in its place of generating absolutely sure little ones are protected from fentanyl,” he wrote.
Suarez then chimed in on Twitter to say it was time for the social media huge to make a geographical transform for its enterprise. Suarez, 45, is a Republican but the place of work of the Miami mayor is regarded nonpartisan.
—Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) December 7, 2022
Need to Twitter make the leap to Miami, it would be considerably from the only significant firm to do so. Suarez has been shepherding the metropolis towards starting to be a key tech hub — a migration that turned particularly pronounced for the duration of 2020 pandemic lockdowns.
A single of Miami’s biggest organization gains was the hedge fund and fiscal services company Citadel, which moved its headquarters from Chicago. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin is a direct donor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Suarez reported these types of small business migrations would aid change Miami into what he named the “money of cash” and “the epicenter of aggregation and deployment of cash.”
“Those types of significant-motion gatherings have an means to modify the dynamic and carry on the process of shifting the standing of our city — from a metropolis that was just a place to go to have fun, or a spot that you would maybe go to retire, to a position in which you could do serious small business,” he claimed.
Suarez, who is of Cuban descent, told Insider that Musk’s repositioning of Twitter designed it a sturdy match for Miami for the reason that “this is a city that leans into the American aspiration and the American practical experience of doing work hard and seeking to superior yourself.” Just about three-quarters of folks living in Miami are Hispanic, and Suarez said many households who are living listed here come from countries in which “freedoms are taken away.”
As CEO of Twitter, Musk has promised to unleash free of charge speech. He altered Twitter’s information-moderation policies and reinstated selected banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.
Musk, nevertheless, also temporarily suspended the accounts of a quantity of journalists immediately after accusing them of “doxing.” Some of the reporters had prepared about the suspension of the account @ElonJet, a Twitter account that made use of publicly-offered information to keep track of the whereabouts of Musk’s non-public jet.
It’s not distinct no matter whether Musk is looking at transferring the firm’s headquarters. A Twitter information Insider despatched to the company’s communications group was not answered.
Musk formally acquired Twitter in Oct for $44 billion, and due to the fact then he cut about 50 percent the company’s workforce. He launched new capabilities and revoked many others, and various famous people have give up the system. Musk has mentioned he’ll move down as CEO after he finds an individual else to fill the purpose.
Asked about the “Twitter Files” of inner corporation deliberations that Musk unveiled to find impartial reporters, Suarez said that he was not “overly shocked” mainly because of currently-existing perceptions about the company below past leadership.
The “Twitter Documents” reporting involved communications that showed how Twitter workers decided which tweets or accounts to suppress and elevate, as perfectly as input from governing administration entities underneath the two the Biden and Trump administrations.
“It’s possible that’ll develop some evaluate of accountability and fear that if you might be operating in a company, this could occur,” Suarez said. “Anyone could purchase the corporation say, ‘Hey, we are likely to air out our practices and techniques,’ and so you should really be imagining about that chance.”