After months spent attempting to undo the deal he initiated, Tesla founder Elon Musk pays $44 billion to take possession of Twitter, honoring an agreement made in April. The information was confirmed this morning by the US Securities and Change Fee after a day of excessive drama at Twitter.
Late yesterday, the Washington Post reported that a number of prime executives had been fired, together with CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief counsel Sean Edgett, and coverage chief Vijaya Gadde, who Musk has prompt induced the platform to favor liberal political opinions. Reuters reported that the executives have been escorted from Twitter’s San Francisco HQ.
Musk modified his bio to learn “Chief Twit” and tweeted “the fowl is freed.” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone thanked the three executives for his or her “collective contribution” to the social community. Later, Segal up to date his bio to “former CFO and present fan” of Twitter.
The deal completes Musk’s metamorphosis from Twitter super user, to vocal critic, to proprietor. The platform and the corporate behind it seem like set for main modifications. The entrepreneur has said he would enable former US president Donald Trump again onto the platform and accused Twitter’s moderation insurance policies of inflicting a notion of liberal bias. In textual content messages launched throughout his try to get out of the deal, Musk mentioned employees cuts.
Musk first supplied to purchase Twitter in April, after buying some 10 p.c of the corporate’s shares and attempting and then declining to join its board. Twitter’s board initially moved to withstand a takeover, however later within the month announced that it had accepted Musk’s provide to buy the corporate for $44 billion, in a deal together with a $1 billion termination fee ought to both social gathering select to stroll away.
Nearly instantly, the corporate misplaced a few of its top talent. Musk made clear he wished main modifications at Twitter, which regardless of its cultural clout in politics and media has lagged behind different social networks in scale and profitability.
Musk mentioned he was involved about political bias and wished to see Twitter assist “free speech” by limiting solely posts that broke the legislation, a coverage that within the US would enable hate speech and different content material presently banned. Activists, firm insiders, and a few minority shareholders started to fret that Twitter below Musk would become a haven for trolls and harassment.
Gadde, who led Twitter’s work on moderation, was pummeled with on-line abuse after Musk tweeted a meme that includes her picture that implied she induced the platform’s content material moderation to favor liberal views. (Twitter’s own research has indicated that the platform in actual fact favors right-wing politicians and media shops).
Musk’s ardor for Twitter pale weeks after the deal was agreed, within the wake of a broad selloff on the inventory market. The entrepreneur claimed that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” alleging that the corporate had lied about the number of bots in figures disclosed in monetary filings.
