CHRIS WHITE TECH REPORTER
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San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin suggested Friday that Twitter’s move to leave the high-taxed city was likely a function of CEO Jack Dorsey’s supposed reliance on President Donald Trump’s tweets.
Twitter must leave San Francisco so it can be less dependent on the California city, Dorsey said in an earnings call Thursday. Peskin etched out a theory as to why the tech billionaire made that claim.
“Sounds like something Jack would say,” Peskin told BuzzFeed News after Dorsey said in an earnings call.
Peskin added: “Apparently, the only thing serving Twitter anymore is Donald Trump.”
Dorsey said in the call that he is planning to expand the social media company outside of the city. (RELATED: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Meets With Trump)
“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce,” Dorsey said on the earnings call. “We have to build a company that’s not entirely dependent on San Francisco.”
President Donald Trump met with Dorsey in April 2019 and told his Twitter followers that month that he looked forward to “keeping an open dialogue.” The conversation came after the president lit into Twitter alleging the company discriminates against conservatives.
Dorsey’s decision is concerning given the city’s sky-rocketing housing costs, according to some analysts.
“It’s not unexpected that a major tech company would choose to have a distributed workforce … particularly when the cost of living differences between San Francisco and many other places are continuing to widen,” Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, told BuzzFeed News.
California’s high housing prices and rising gas prices are reportedly driving away what remains of the state’s low-income citizens. Those migrating from the state are making way for places like Las Vegas and Arizona, where housing prices are relatively cheap compared to California.
California saw a loss of more than 138,000 people between 2016 and 2017, according to data from Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Texas experienced an uptick of more than 79,000 people during that period.
Arizona and Nevada gained more than 63,000 and 38,000 residents, respectively.
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