KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 16): Billionaire Twitter Inc owner Elon Musk plans to end food perks for employees at the company’s headquarters, after claiming that the lunch benefit cost the company some US$13 million per year.

In a tweet on Monday (Nov 14), the richest man in the world with a fortune of US$185 billion as per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, he said that offering free meals at the company cafeteria had become unsustainable because “almost no one came to the office”.

Twitter employees who survived the mass firing will soon have to pay for their meals.

Musk said he will scrap the free meals served at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco because it was costing the company around US$400 per worker.

His tweet, which followed a massive layoff operation exercise after he took over the company, sparked further debate between past and present employees.

Twitter’s former vice president of work transformation Tracy Hawkins responded to Musk's tweet and said: “This is a lie. I ran this program up until a week ago when I resigned because I didn’t want to work for @elonmusk.”

“For breakfast & lunch we spent US$20-US$25 a day per person. This enabled employees to work thru lunchtime & mtgs. Attendance was anything from 20-50% in the offices,” she tweeted.

Musk shot back, saying: “Especially bizarre given that almost no one came to the office. Estimated cost per lunch served in past 12 months is more than US$400.”

“There are more people preparing breakfast than eating breakfast.

“They don’t even bother serving dinner, because there is no one in the building,” he said.

Meanwhile, another user Twitter user named Billy Becker said: "If you were interviewing at a company that said 'come work for us, one of the perks is we have multiple onsite kitchens that prepare fresh breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday' then later took it away how would you feel? They feel entitled to it because it was part of the offer.

Another user, Bill Rotheisler @Bar_Down_Bill replied to Musk: “Even if true, that there is a job where people expect you to owe them breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday is wild to me.  Maybe I am in the wrong business, as I wouldn't have guessed this is normal, let alone being postured as unethical. That's a new level of privilege.”