After six months of public and legal battle over the deal, Elon Musk finally completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the situation, placing the world’s richest man in charge of the struggling social network.
One of Musk’s first actions was to replace the leadership. According to persons with knowledge of the situation, departures include Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde, chief financial officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017, and general counsel Sean Edgett, who has served as Twitter’s general counsel since 2012.
Edgett was escorted out of the building, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Twitter will now be a private company and shareholders will get $54.20 per share. The completion brings to an end a convoluted process that started in January with the billionaire quietly building up a sizable investment in the business, his mounting displeasure with the way it’s handled, and an eventual merger agreement that he later spent months trying to undo.
On October 4, Musk decided to move forward with the terms he had first suggested, and a Delaware Chancery Court judge granted the two parties until October 28 to complete the transaction. That deadline was met, and now Musk, who also serves as CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Inc., also has control of Twitter, which he frequently uses but openly criticises and which he has promised to dramatically change. The company’s shares are no longer expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
Because many of Musk’s ideas for changing the company conflict with the way it has been handled for years, his ownership of Twitter will cause immediate upheaval to its operations. He has stated that he wants to protect “free speech” on the social network, which probably entails lowering the standards for content moderation. He also plans to reinstate some well-known accounts that were suspended from Twitter for breaking the rules, including the account of former US President Donald Trump. More generally, Musk’s activities pose a threat to undo years of Twitter’s attempts to curtail bullying and harassment on the social media site.
As the deadline drew closer, Musk started to personalise the business, tweeting a video of himself entering the office and updating his platform description to “Chief Twit.” According to those with knowledge of the situation, he scheduled meetings between Tesla engineers and Twitter product executives and planned to speak to the staff on Friday. As of noon on Thursday in San Francisco, Twitter’s engineers were no longer able to make code modifications as part of an effort to guarantee that nothing about the product changes before the deal closes, according to the people.
Since the merger was revealed in April, Twitter staff have been preparing for layoffs, and Musk mentioned the concept of cost cuts to banking partners when he was initially raising money for the deal. According to a person familiar with the situation earlier this month, Musk informed some prospective investors that he expects to double Twitter’s income within three years and plans to reduce 75% of the company’s workforce, which currently numbers approximately 7,500.
According to those familiar with the situation, when Musk visited Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday, he told employees that he did not intend to fire 75% of the staff after taking over the company.
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The Chenab Times News Desk
