Elon Musk has reportedly accomplished his $44bn takeover of Twitter, taking management of the corporate and firing a number of of the corporate’s high executives, together with CEO Parag Agrawal.
A number of retailers reported on Thursday night that a number of senior figures had been ousted as Musk finalized the deal, together with Agrawal, Ned Segal, the chief monetary officer, and Vijaya Gadde, the top of authorized coverage, belief and security.
Agrawal and Segal have been in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and have been escorted out, Reuters reported.
A way of confusion hung over the deal on Thursday evening, nonetheless, with neither Twitter nor Musk instantly confirming the firings. Musk, who had earlier modified his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit”, tweeted about SpaceX however didn’t point out his new acquisition or the dismissals after the information broke.
The reported firings observe information that Musk deliberate to remove almost 75% of Twitter’s workers in an effort to pay down the corporate’s debt. Musk later dismissed these stories, telling workers he wouldn’t minimize such a big portion of the workers.
Musk paid a go to to the corporate’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday, carrying a sink, and has mentioned he’s buying the corporate “to attempt to assist humanity”.
“The explanation I acquired Twitter is as a result of it is very important the way forward for civilization to have a typical digital city sq., the place a variety of beliefs could be debated in a wholesome method, with out resorting to violence,” he wrote.
Thursday’s shakeup comes forward of a Friday deadline to finish the acquisition of the corporate, and can give the world’s richest man management of an influential social media platform with greater than 230 million customers.
It additionally caps a number of tumultuous months of forwards and backwards over whether or not he would truly observe by means of together with his provide to purchase the corporate.
Musk signed a deal to buy Twitter on 25 April however he then turned embroiled in a row with the corporate over the variety of spam accounts on its platform, main him to announce in July he was strolling away from the transaction.
Twitter then sued Musk in Delaware, the place the corporate is integrated, to demand that he shut the deal. Following a shock change of thoughts by Musk as a court docket date approached, a Delaware choose then gave each side till 28 October to shut the deal.
With Musks’s takeover showing all however full, consideration will now flip to his plans for the platform, which performs an outsized function within the political and media panorama resulting from its following amongst journalists, commentators, celebrities and politicians.
Musk has already signaled that he’ll reverse a everlasting ban on Donald Trump, reflecting his stance as a self-confessed “free speech absolutist”.