King Charles Crown Estate launches legal action against Elon Musk’s Twitter

The Crown Estate, which manages the property portfolio owned by Britain’s King Charles, is taking legal action against Elon Musk’s Twitter over unpaid rent.

According to AFP, the Crown Estate, a company that manages land and property belonging to the British monarchy, said it has launched legal action at the High Court for rental arrears on an office space close to Piccadilly Circus.

A representative said that it had contacted Twitter previously and is currently in discussions with the company.

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, bought Twitter for $44 billion (£35 billion) in October last year.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the landlord of Twitter´s San Francisco headquarters has sued the company for allegedly failing to pay almost $6.8 million in rent for December and January.

Twitter has a London office in a complex on Air Street called Air W1, whose landlord is the Crown Estate.

Twitter UK began using this office in 2014, according to Companies House, which gives this as its registered address.

The Crown Estate is an independently managed portfolio of land, property and other assets belonging to the monarchy.

Its commercial income goes to the Treasury and the monarch receives an annual allowance of 15 percent of its profits called the Sovereign Grant.

The Crown Estate says it owns more than 2.6 million square feet (241,550 square metres) of office space in central London.