Bird Statue Fetches $100,000 as Musk Auctions Twitter HQ Items

An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Bird Statue Fetches $100,000 as Musk Auctions Twitter HQ Items

An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

A Twitter bird statue fetched $100,000 on Wednesday as Elon Musk auctioned off furniture, decorations, kitchen equipment and more from the tech firm's downtown San Francisco headquarters, AFP reported.

An online auction of "surplus corporate office assets of Twitter" that lasted slightly more than 24 hours also featured a 10-foot neon light in the shape of Twitter's bird logo, which brought in a winning bid of $40,000, Heritage Global Partners auction service confirmed.

Among the 631 lots were espresso machines, ergonomically correct desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens and a decorative planter shaped like an "@" sign.

Musk in December said that severe cost cuts at Twitter had repaired the company's dire finances as he set out to find a new CEO for his troubled social media platform.

The mercurial billionaire told a live chat forum at the time that without the changes, including firing over half of Twitter's employees, the company would have bled $3 billion dollars a year.

Musk said he had been "cutting costs like crazy" at the platform he bought for $44 billion.

Just weeks into his ownership of Twitter, Musk fired about half of its 7,500-strong workforce, sparking concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.

Musk said his strategy is to massively reduce costs while building up revenue, and that a new $8 subscription service called Twitter Blue would help with that goal.

Musk-led Twitter has been riven by chaos, with mass layoffs, the return of banned accounts and the suspension of journalists critical of the South African-born billionaire.

Musk's takeover also saw a surge in racist or hateful tweets, drawing in scrutiny from regulators and chasing away big advertisers, Twitter's main source of revenue.



Disasters Loom over South Asia with Forecast of Hotter, Wetter Monsoon

The Himalayan mountain range of Annapurna and Mount Machapuchare (top, C) are pictured from Nepal's Pokhara on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
The Himalayan mountain range of Annapurna and Mount Machapuchare (top, C) are pictured from Nepal's Pokhara on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
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Disasters Loom over South Asia with Forecast of Hotter, Wetter Monsoon

The Himalayan mountain range of Annapurna and Mount Machapuchare (top, C) are pictured from Nepal's Pokhara on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
The Himalayan mountain range of Annapurna and Mount Machapuchare (top, C) are pictured from Nepal's Pokhara on June 7, 2025. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)

Communities across Asia's Himalayan Hindu Kush region face heightened disaster risks this monsoon season with temperatures and rainfall expected to exceed normal levels, experts warned on Thursday.

Temperatures are expected to be up to two degrees Celsius hotter than average across the region, with forecasts for above-average rains, according to a monsoon outlook released by Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on Wednesday.

"Rising temperatures and more extreme rain raise the risk of water-induced disasters such as floods, landslides, and debris flows, and have longer-term impacts on glaciers, snow reserves, and permafrost," Arun Bhakta Shrestha, a senior adviser at ICIMOD, said in a statement.

The summer monsoon, which brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall, is vital for agriculture and therefore for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and for food security in a region that is home to around two billion people.

However, it also brings destruction through landslides and floods every year. Melting glaciers add to the volume of water, while unregulated construction in flood-prone areas exacerbates the damage.

"What we have seen over the years are also cascading disasters where, for example, heavy rainfall can lead to landslides, and landslides can actually block rivers. We need to be aware about such possibilities," Saswata Sanyal, manager of ICIMOD's Disaster Risk Reduction work, told AFP.

Last year's monsoon season brought devastating landslides and floods across South Asia and killed hundreds of people, including more than 300 in Nepal.

This year, Nepal has set up a monsoon response command post, led by its National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.

"We are coordinating to stay prepared and to share data and alerts up to the local level for early response. Our security forces are on standby for rescue efforts," said agency spokesman Ram Bahadur KC.

Weather-related disasters are common during the monsoon season from June to September but experts say climate change, coupled with urbanization, is increasing their frequency and severity.

The UN's World Meteorological Organization said last year that increasingly intense floods and droughts are a "distress signal" of what is to come as climate change makes the planet's water cycle ever more unpredictable.