Elon Musk has finally taken control of Twitter and fired key executives in order to bring in his own group of execs.
According to reports from the New York Times, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other outlets, Musk finally sealed the deal last night and began to make his presence felt.
The first heads on the chopping block were CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett, and head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde.
The now-official deal follows months of on-off bargaining, tweeting, and legal wrangling between the South African businessman and the social media platform. Musk first expressed interest in buying twitter back in April(!) but seemingly did not have the cash on hand to complete the deal.
After pulling together support from investors, Musk was able to make an official offer to buy the social media platform. But, following share price fluctuations, Musk said that the US$44 billion he offered for the platform no longer reflected its true market price.
He sued Twitter, complaining that the company had failed to accurately represent the number of bot accounts active on the platform. Twitter counter-sued in order to get Musk to pay his original offer.
The two parties had been stuck in a staring match, waiting to see who would crack first with trial proceedings due to start in a Delaware courthouse tomorrow. With potential private emails and messaging be revealed to the public, it seems Musk blinked first, paying the original price tag.
However, that didn’t stop him jumping the gun and chasing virality. As ever, the Tesla CEO decided to tweet some funny stuff for his legions of meme-loving fans.
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
Musk even penned a note to Twitter advertisers to help quell their fears about the platform descending into a free speech “hellscape.” He also said he was buying Twitter with “humility” to “help humanity.”
Twitter has not commented on the deal being finalised.
