Twitter is continuing to challenge its cloud bills and is refusing to pay money owed to Google Cloud.
Platformer reports Twitter has refused to pay its Google Cloud bills as its contract comes up for renewal this month.
Twitter signed a contract with Google in 2018, and announced an expansion of its GCP footprint in 2021. The multi-year deal up for renewal reportedly spans five years and is valued at more than $1 billion, with some $300 million due in 2023.
Platformer reports Twitter has been ‘scrambling’ to move services off Google Cloud before the contract ends on June 30, but this is taking longer than expected, and it's uncertain what could happen with some of the affected services.
The systems potentially under threat if cut off include those dedicated to fighting spam, and removing content featuring child sexual abuse, extremism, and gore.
Smyte, a company Twitter acquired in 2018 that provides tools to stop harassment, abuse, and spam, is hosted on Google Cloud Platform and is now set to be shut down at the end of the month,
The Information has previously reported that the company has been seeking to renegotiate its contract with Google in recent months, following similar renegotiation attempts with Amazon and Oracle last year.
Since he took over Twitter for $44 billion last year, Elon Musk has been looking to reduce the company’s IT footprint and costs.
The company has closed one of Twitter's three US data centers and reportedly exited another – with Musk’s other company Tesla taking vacated space in at least one of the sites – has cut back on server capacity, and fired IT and software workers that kept the service online.
Twitter has experienced a number of major outages since Musk took over.
In March, Twitter began a similar game of chicken with Amazon Web Services, reportedly refusing to pay its AWS bills for months. In retaliation, AWS then refused to pay for the advertising it runs on the social platform, leading Twitter to pay at least some of what was owed. Twitter had been an AWS customer since at least 2020.
At the time of the AWS conflict, Twitter was reportedly up to date on its GCP payments.
