Elon Musk’s Twitter needs every penny. With tens of millions of {dollars} in allegedly unpaid rent and bills, plus $13 billion owed to lenders who financed his takeover, there’s “still much work to do” if the corporate is to keep away from chapter, Musk said last month.

Twitter just lately auctioned off an estimated $1.5 million of furnishings and tools from its San Francisco headquarters, all the way down to trifles resembling keyboards and USB dongles. But the corporate has left tens, or probably a whole bunch, of hundreds of {dollars}’ price of shimmering belongings to collect mud in former workers’ houses.

Some individuals laid off or fired by Musk are puzzling over why Twitter hasn’t bothered to gather their company laptops, the most recent head scratcher in a takeover characterised by botched product launches, abrupt policy changes, and delayed paychecks.

Eric Frohnhoefer, a California software program engineer fired in November after confronting Musk via tweet, says he has not heard a peep about returning his company-issued Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro laptop computer from 2021 (8/10 WIRED Recommends). “It’s still sitting in a closet,” he says. Like the laptops of hundreds of distant Twitter workers that Musk has terminated or let resign since early November, his was digitally locked, rendering it ineffective.

Refurbished variations of his mannequin can nonetheless fetch round $1,000, and new ones retail for twice that. Frohnhoefer doesn’t really feel indebted to Musk and is in no rush to return the machine. “I’m happy letting it sit there and be a brick,” he says.

Two different ex-Tweeps say they’re much less relaxed about their custody of Musk’s costly paperweights as a result of they’re among the many staff nonetheless owed severance, and so they worry it may result in additional delays to their compensation, and even authorized issues down the road. On ex-employee discussion groups, braver souls have mentioned trying to crack their laptop computer’s lock code or wipe and reset the machine, a type of sources says.

Twitter didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Businesses sometimes need their units again shortly from departing workers to guard proprietary knowledge and lower your expenses, by chopping leases for the tools or by reuse and resale. But there are exceptions. Snap and Airbnb confirmed that they allowed staff laid off through the pandemic to maintain their company laptops.

Some former Twitter staff have advised colleagues they despatched gear again after reaching out to the corporate for pay as you go transport containers. Others inside the previous few days obtained generic emails asking them to fill out a “Twitter Device Collection Survey,” a number of individuals say. But 4 out of 5 who spoke with WIRED had not obtained the e-mail themselves and are nonetheless babysitting Musk’s property.

“I think at this point Twitter figured it would cost too much to try to take all these laptops back with nowhere to store them—they haven’t been paying rent in a while you know,” says Frank Meng, a machine-learning engineer in Canada laid off by Twitter in November. He discovered solely final week from one of many personal group chats that returns may eventually be occurring.

The survey seen by WIRED describes badges, authentication tokens, company bank cards, company-issued cell telephones, and laptop computer chargers as objects that may be returned. However, displays, keyboards, mice, show cables, and stands don’t have to be collected, in accordance with the shape. What ex-workers ought to do with laptops is just not made clear. 

The survey asks for an tackle the place a transport field for returnable objects will be despatched, however it additionally gives choices to drop tools at some Twitter places of work. 

When WIRED wrote to a Twitter e mail tackle for tools returns that was shared by an ex-worker, an unsigned response got here again after about three hours linking to the shape and saying that additional directions and a field would arrive inside 30 days of submission. One laid-off employee says they’re not speeding to fill it out. “Elon can wait.”