[HN Gopher] San Francisco officials weigh in on departure of X h...
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       San Francisco officials weigh in on departure of X headquarters:
       'Good riddance'
        
       Author : jarsin
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2024-08-25 21:59 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nypost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nypost.com)
        
       | whall6 wrote:
       | Why insist on making enemies? Even if it is Elon Musk. How hard
       | is it to just ignore the question?
        
         | Zambyte wrote:
         | What question?
        
       | underseacables wrote:
       | San Francisco has been saying good riddance to a lot of good
       | companies for a while now. Maybe not out loud, but certainly
       | through their policies have they driven away a lot of business.
       | Downtown is a ghost town now.
        
         | sien wrote:
         | Are they starting to move people on now in San Francisco ?
         | 
         | With the Grants Pass vs Johnson decision (
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Grants_Pass_v._Johnson )
         | it seems like it is now possible.
         | 
         | Is there any change in other places under the jurisdiction of
         | the ninth circuit court ?
        
           | bobthepanda wrote:
           | I am not sure about SF, but there is tension in LA now
           | because Newsom is doing sweeps on state owned land and has
           | pressured LA officials to do sweeps, which they are against.
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | I wonder if this move is also a "hidden layoff", that is where he
       | will say "Move to TX or quit, your choice".
       | 
       | Also if an employee moves to TX, will they get moving expenses ?
        
         | nehal3m wrote:
         | I'm not from the US. What if you choose not to quit but not to
         | move either? Would they have to fire you so you can get
         | unemployment benefits?
        
         | andsoitis wrote:
         | X isn't moving to Texas.
         | 
         | They're relocating to San Jose and Palo Alto, which is 40 - 60
         | mins or so south of San Francisco.
         | https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/x-closing-san-francisco-hq-re...
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | For any San Francisco person moving to Texas, the coldest
         | winter will not be a summer here.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | Elon already got rid of 80-90% of the original employees.
         | 
         | I doubt he'll start sugar coating it now.
        
       | mjfl wrote:
       | This is like Saudi Arabia pretending to say 'good riddance' to
       | oil. What are you going to do when it's all gone?
        
         | ceejayoz wrote:
         | Twitter already laid off 80-90% of staff. It was already almost
         | all gone, from SF's perspective.
        
         | TechnicolorByte wrote:
         | Comparing X, which is one company (with a far reduced headcount
         | and much smaller revenues compared to pre-Elon) in a tech hub
         | city to an entire oil industry in an oil-rich state seems
         | beyond hyperbolic.
        
         | DonHopkins wrote:
         | Are you saying that Elon Musk is oily?
        
         | hindsightbias wrote:
         | Party like it's 2011 agian, before the dumb supes gave them a
         | tax break not to move and it all went to crap.
        
       | joemazerino wrote:
       | The residual damage from large companies moving out of downtown
       | cores seem to be lost on the local politicians. They will say
       | everything is fine as the service industry meant to sustain
       | companies evaporate.
        
       | wrs wrote:
       | That's not the definition of "gross receipts". Perhaps Elon
       | thinks he's too smart to ask an actual accountant, or perhaps
       | he's mad about the "Overpaid Executive" surcharge on the gross
       | receipts tax. [0]
       | 
       | [0] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/overpaid-
       | executi...
        
       | atleastoptimal wrote:
       | San Francisco needs to get its act together. Richest, smartest
       | city in the US, perhaps the planet, and its downtown is barely
       | habitable, and development/improvement is relegated to very
       | exclusive rich areas.
        
         | crooked-v wrote:
         | I think you can sum up almost all of SF's instituional issues
         | with the fact that as of June this year, they'd approved 16 new
         | housing units, total, for the entire city
         | (https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-only-agreed-
         | build-16-...).
        
         | pfisherman wrote:
         | Downtown has never been where the bulk of the ppl in SF live or
         | hang out. It is for the "bridge and tunnel crowd" --- mostly
         | offices and businesses; and not meant to be habitable.
        
       | coolhand2120 wrote:
       | My company HQ is in SF still, not sure how much longer. I get to
       | visit downtown fairly frequently. SF is so bad today that people
       | just leave their car windows open lest some thief accidently
       | believe they had the audacity to lock their cars. Many major
       | retailers that I was used to seeing downtown have left. The
       | criminals and homeless run the show in SF. Really sad to see how
       | far it has gone in such a short period of time. I'm not sure why
       | X is leaving, but X is just another company in a long list of
       | companies. Often they'll take with them the people who worked
       | there, then there's just that many fewer functional citizens as a
       | percentage in the city. When does it become a vicious cycle?
        
         | 650REDHAIR wrote:
         | I'm downtown SF all day every day.
         | 
         | I'm all over the city all day every day.
         | 
         | I never see windows down.
         | 
         | What are you talking about?
        
           | infotainment wrote:
           | Shh, you're not allowed to say anything positive about SF,
           | you'll interrupt the ancient and sacred internet ceremony of
           | people-who-don't-live-in-SF-talking-about-how-horrible-SF-is.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | Sometimes you _have_ to hit rock bottom before you acknowledge
         | you have a problem.
         | 
         | There is still some way left to go.
        
       | big-green-man wrote:
       | That's the spirit! Keep doubling down! Never admit that you've
       | made a mistake!
        
       | browningstreet wrote:
       | The SF problems exist in a lot of American places.
       | 
       | Hard not to think that American governance plus American culture
       | are both a bit broken. Without a social safety net, the troubled
       | and in-trouble layers of our society can't find a hold for
       | recovery.
       | 
       | I'm in SF right now. It's a lovely place across many dimensions.
       | But when the bus dropped me off near Civic Center and City Hall,
       | I had to walk through and around a crowd that is in need of help.
       | 
       | My office used to be at 8th and Howard. I had to walk around the
       | troubles. The hardened part of me thinks "they've done this to
       | themselves", and the supportive part of me says "other places
       | have figured out the minimum viable social safety net" to avoid
       | the worst of it.
       | 
       | Hard to believe that a Whole Foods went into a giant residential
       | development center and no one could figure out how not to lose
       | it.
        
         | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
         | >Hard to believe that a Whole Foods went into a giant
         | residential development center and no one could figure out how
         | not to lose it.
         | 
         | As in went out of business?
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-25 23:00 UTC)