Great news, shoppers: you can finally get your hands on a 100 per cent authentic, 3ft-tall statue of the Twitter bird.
An online auction next month will feature hundreds of the company’s “surplus corporate office assets” that could add a certain je ne sais quoi to any home or workplace, from bizarre decor to high-end cooking equipment.
The sale comes amid Elon Musk’s chaotic $44 billion (€41.3 billion) takeover of the company, which has brought rapid-fire policy changes (and immediate U-turns), the reinstatement of banned accounts, and, according to Musk himself, a huge dip in advertising revenue. It has also involved shedding thousands of jobs – and now, apparently, shedding office furniture.
A representative for the auctioneers, Heritage Global Partners, told Fortune that the auction “has nothing to do with their financial position”, adding: “If anyone genuinely thinks that the revenue from selling a couple computers and chairs will pay for the mountain there, then they’re a moron.”
[ Martin Wolf: Progress is still worth fighting forOpens in new window ]
Regardless of the reason, it’s hard not to see the auction as symbolic of a tech industry shift: from the heady days of the early 2000s, when endlessly wealthy platforms catered to workers’ every whim, to a more uncertain modern era. Somehow, that industrial cheese slicer just doesn’t feel as necessary as it once did.
Here’s a guide to the sale’s most memorable items, in case you’re still looking for that perfect gift:
A 6ft-tall planter in the shape of the @ symbol. Sure to be a hit with the tech-obsessed gardener in your life, this piece marries the ancient art of horticulture with a ubiquitous symbol of decaying public discourse. Expect heads to turn when you install this in front of your home, announcing to passersby that you have no soul.
A “high-performance task chair”. Nothing says high-performance like sitting down. Turn workaday programming into X-treme coding with this seat, which uses the latest in sedentary technology to shield your thighs and buttocks from direct contact with the floor. It’s surprising Musk is willing to part with this at a time when his priorities are “extremely hard-core”.
Kegerators. A house isn’t a home without a fridge that dispenses beer. And a workplace isn’t a workplace if you can’t drink on the job. Imagine channelling your fluids through the same tubes that might once have lubricated the likes of the Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone.
A rotisserie oven with 24 spits. Who could forget those late nights at the office, rustling up a snack of 24 whole chickens while sifting through hate speech? Pairs perfectly with a 20-gallon vegetable dryer.
An old iMac. This computer might be out of date, but in a courageous act of corporate one-upmanship, someone stuck a Twitter sticker over the Apple logo. So that’s pretty cool. And just think – this computer might have been the one used to ban Donald Trump!
That’s the best of what’s on offer for now, but stay tuned – the next Twitter-auction drop might feature everything you need for a “modest bedroom”. – Guardian service
