Former Twitter PR agency sues over unpaid bills: Reuters

Joele Frank, one of Twitter’s former PR agencies, is suing the social media company, saying it has not paid its bills since Elon Musk purchased the company in November, Reuters reported. 

Joele Frank said Twitter owes $830,498, made up of six unpaid invoices, as well as costs for a subpoena in Twitter’s lawsuit to force Musk to buy the company after he attempted to back out of the $44 billion deal. 

The New York-based agency said Twitter ended its contract on November 16 and has not communicated about payment demands beyond an automated response to “get started processing it right away.” Joele Frank, which specializes in corporate and financial communications, started working with the platform in January 2015, the firm said in its complaint in New York state court in Manhattan, according to the wire service. 

Twitter also ended its partnership with Autumn Communications, its former consumer PR AOR, after Musk’s acquisition, just two months after the relationship started in September. Musk has deprioritized communications in-house, as well, almost completely erasing the department in a round of mass layoffs.  

Rebecca Hahn, Twitter’s global head of comms, left the company in January to join software and hardware development company Tools for Humanity as chief communications officer. 

Since March, [email protected] has been set up to respond to queries with an automated reply that includes nothing but a poop emoji. Twitter did not respond to PRWeek’s request for comment on Joele Frank’s lawsuit, aside from the emoji. Joele Frank declined to comment. 

Joele Frank is not the only party taking legal action against Musk-owned Twitter. A group of former Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal and ex-CFO Ned Segal, have sued the company over alleged unpaid legal reimbursements. Landlords have also sued the social media network for allegedly failing to pay rent for a San Francisco office. 

Despite a more-than-50% decrease in valuation and advertiser departures, Musk has said that Twitter could become cash-flow positive as soon as Q2. The Tesla CEO added that most of the advertisers that left the platform after his arrival have returned. Outgoing NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is set to join Twitter as CEO as soon as the end of next month.