Another damned erection without authorization.

I imagine Musk’s lair to be on a severe tilt, like all villain lairs should be!

"...the bright, flashing sign bathing the area in intense light. "

That's real classy Elon.

What must it be like to crave this much attention, all of the time?

I hear that they have guns in the US.

What's the betting someone indulges in a little target practice?

It would be a shame if something happened to it....

I actually just posted to Masto:

I'm not an advocate for throwing .308 rounds around San Francisco, but a few well placed .308 rounds would fix that.

And there's plenty of taller buildings around.

I think it'd be more fun to parachute in and just heave-ho.

"Move fast and break things." Building codes and neighbors eyeballs, apparently.

Why can’t they go to the nearest police precinct and get an escort to make sure there are no barriers to the inspector getting to the roof? Call up the building owner and get them to give permission for the inspector to do their job. And of course if that means the police have to get out the battering ram and knock in a few doors… so be it.

They’re an authorized government official conducting authorized government business so there should be no legitimate reason they can be turned away. If the building tenant(s) don’t want to comply then whoever’s name is on the lease should be tossed in jail until they give permission or access is gained despite their obstruction. In the latter case they should be issued some kind of citation and put on a shitlist.

Shut down the power to their floor and cut their Internet connection to get their attention.

I give it 5 minutes, tops.

Depending on the local regulations and policies, the fire marshal can definitely enter and shut down a building for certain violations. "These are my burly 25 year old gentlemen with implements of door destruction, let us in or else...."

"Why can’t they go to the nearest police precinct and get an escort to make sure there are no barriers to the inspector getting to the roof?"

They may need to see a judge first to get a warrant although that's usually not required for visible code violations. Even if that's so, the city will want to dot their t's and cross their i's since Elon will turn any action into a circus.

I don't see any issue with the city condemning the building for permit violations and securing the doors. If the city also provides power, they could have that off as well as a preventative measure.

Why should they need a warrant to perform the actual inspection? They aren’t there to look into any of twitter’s business operations, they aren’t there to seize records or property, just to get access to the roof to do an inspection of the work that was done.

Most signage in muni areas are required to have an official city license sticker.

Had a beverage distributor across my alleyway in San Diego install the brightest security light fixture they could find above their loading dock so they could unload semi-trailers of food stuffs at 11pm to 3am and avoid traffic jams.

City took care of it within three days.

[1]The Guardian reports that it had gone dark on Sunday (end of article).

No information if that was because someone realised that in a country with such a high gun-to-population ration it would soon be used for target practice (and an 'x'' tends to be used to mark a target) or if the electricity company had shut it down because Musk is not in the habit of paying bills.

The option that someone sane had shut it down to be a bit friendlier to the neighbours or because it was placed without a permit can be safely ignored IMHO. That's not how this man interacts with the world.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/31/twitter-x-new-logo-complaints-san-francisco-hq

"No information if that was because someone realised that in a country with such a high gun-to-population ration it would soon be used for target practice (and an 'x'' tends to be used to mark a target)"

There's strong anti-gun laws in SF so there won't be any guns in the city. /s

Could they do with a bit of practice entering a building down town SF?

May get an opportunity to throw some stun granades

... but is this SF Headquarters where Musk keeps making changes (sleeping rooms, taking signs down, putting idiotic code breaking lights on top, etc.) the same Headquarters where he stopped paying rent and is being taken to court to pay back the arrears?

Surely if you're the owner, at some point you have to bite the bullet, lock the doors, and stop the idiot, before you end up with a building so messed up it has to be condemned???

Most likely the owner is some REIT corporation which has a lot of other commercial real estate all over the country that's unoccupied so they might figure at least having someone occupying it is better than evicting them as it will allow them to get paid eventually, via lawsuit or lien.

Or the owner is some nonagenarian who has lived in the Bay Area since the Depression who hasn't paid attention to the details of their real estate empire for years, employs a building manager who isn't empowered to file lawsuits on their behalf, and has family waiting on him/her to die so they can sell it for whatever they can get to cash out and live a life of luxury.

I think I know them!

Feel sympathy for the neighbours but I don't care much about what happens to Twitter - just another antisocial media organisation.

Still, at least he hasn't put the thing in low Earth orbit and upset astronomers with the brightness of its reflection of sunlight. Only a very inconsiderate person would do something like that.

Oh.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

Until the power goes off