Police crashed Elon Musk's attempt to take down Twitter's sign with a crane

Police responded to “a possible unpermitted street closure,” a representative for The San Francisco Police Department confirmed to Insider.

Justin Sullivan/Getty

• Elon Musk's sweeping rebrand of Twitter to "X" took effect on Monday.
• As the new logo debuted on the site, efforts were underway to erase a Twitter sign in San Francisco.
• Police looked into "a possible unpermitted street closure," an SFPD representative confirmed to Insider.

Elon Musk spirited the "X" logos onto Twitter's site seemingly overnight, but it may take a while longer to change the sign outside his company's headquarters.

Police showed up on Monday afternoon during efforts to remove the "Twitter" lettering from the massive sign affixed to the building.

The issue, it seems, was the crane being used to take the letter down and the space it took up on the street.

The San Francisco police department halted the work on Monday afternoon and spoke to workers tasked with removing the sign, according to the San Francisco Standard. The letters "er" were still standing amid the interruption, the outlet reported.  

A crane was used to remove some of the letters from the Twitter sign on the company's San Francisco office building.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

SFPD told Insider that officers attended to a report of "a possible unpermitted street closure," as a crane outside Twitter's headquarters in the city was used to remove some of the letters from the Twitter sign. The  officers were "able to determine that no crime was committed, and this incident was not a police matter," the statement continued.

A representative for the SFPD declined to comment beyond the statement. An inquiry sent to Twitter's press address received the automated response, "We'll get back to you soon," and a representative could not be reached for comment. Shorenstein, the owner of the building, declined to comment.

Employees were not informed that the sign would be removed, two people familiar with the company told Insider. A large crane simply "showed up" and began dismantling the sign, one of the people said. The assumption is that it will be replaced with the new "X" insignia Musk is using to rebrand Twitter, which became part of his X Holdings earlier this year.

San Francisco Police stand next to the crane used to dismantle some of the letters in Twitter's SF office sign.

Justin Sullivan/ Getty

From the Market Street office, employees could see that the crane was blocking traffic on the cross street, normally a bustling part of San Francisco. The crane was parked in a lane normally reserved for through traffic, and at points caused traffic to back up. When police showed up in the early afternoon, they began directing traffic around the crane, one of the people familiar said.

Given the disturbance, police halted the removal of the signage before it could be completed, the person said. The crane is now gone, the person added. The full Twitter name remains on one side of the sign, while the other side shows only the letters "er" remain.

Are you a Twitter employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.

Contact Sindhu Sundar at ssundar@insider.com.

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