This time, Elon Musk did not have any last-hour tricks up his sleeve in the 11th hour, and after several dramatic months of lawsuits, allegations, and standoffs, the Tesla and SpaceX executive is finally in charge of Twitter.
This came after the billionaire made good on the offer he had made in April – to take Twitter private at a price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share – as the deadline provided by the Delaware Court of Chancery came knocking on the door. Friday, October 28, was the deadline, and Musk refrained from suddenly changing his mind about the acquisition (which would hardly be the first time) and going forward with the proposed deal.
“The bird is freed,” he wrote on Twitter, after he changed his Twitter Bio to Chief Twit and paid a visit to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco with a sink (of all things) to let the new ownership of the company “sink in.” With the completion of the acquisition, the world’s richest man is now in charge of one of the leading social networking sites and a micro-blogging platform that has a prominent presence in the political and media landscape, courtesy of the widely usage by journalists, celebrities and politicians alike.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
Most people usually celebrate good news with their close ones – they may eat out or go on a trip, or the like. But Elon Musk is not “most people,” and he proved that once again. After adding Twitter to his arsenal and further expanding his empire (despite his assurances that he did not buy Twitter to milk it like a cash cow), the billionaire celebrated by reportedly firing several twitter executives.
With Musk taking over Twitter, a change of guard was expected, however, the billionaire started cleaning house almost as soon as he came in charge of the platform, which suggests that this has been on his mind for quite some time. According to media reports, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety, Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, and Ned Segal, the company’s CFO and who has been a part of the company for the past five years, were the ones who got the axe. Bloomberg reports that Edgett was escorted out of the office by the security personnel.
This marks a rather short tenure of Agrawal as Twitter’s CEO, a position that he took over from Jack Dorsey last year. Agarwal has been the recipient of several poop emojis (sent by Musk, of course) this year, and the revelation of the text messages between Musk and other Twitter execs have highlighted that the two of them are unlikely to work in tandem with each other. Agarwal and Segal were escorted out of the building by security a well.
Elon Musk is now in charge at Twitter. I'm told former CEO @paraga and CFO @nedsegal have left the company's HQ and will not be returning as the Musk era begins.
— David Faber (@davidfaber) October 28, 2022
Of course, they did not go empty-handed – Agrawal was given a total of $38.7 million, Segal got $25.4 million, and Gadde received $12.5 million. This comes as Musk has constantly criticized the company’s management over content moderation, the lack of free speech on the platform, and other factors, and from his perspective, firing them to usher in a new era for Twitter makes sense. Nonetheless, Musk’s cleaning house rings several warning bells, and Twitter’s employees are now bracing for their turn – if Musk decides to change his mind and goes on to fire 75% of Twitter’s staff.
Now, it remains to be seen how Twitter fares under Musk’s ownership, about which the billionaire has provided frustratingly little information. Markets haven’t particularly cheered up either. He does have lofty (if unrealistic) ambitions, which include “defeating” spam bots on the platform, cutting back on content moderation, preventing it from becoming a “free-for-all hellscape,” and ensuring that free speech is present on Twitter. He also plans to bring back some accounts that were kicked off Twitter for breaking rules, such as that of former U.S. President Donald Trump, which has made advertisers (for good reason).
