Elon Musk officially takes over Twitter after striking $44 billion deal: reports – National

Billionaire Elon Musk is now officially in charge of Twitter and has fired several top executives after closing his $44 billion deal to buy the social media company on Thursday, according to multiple reports.

The Washington Post, Reuters and CNBC all reported on the news of Musk’s acquisition, citing anonymous sources familiar with the move.

CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Legal Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde were escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters after the deal closed, the sources said.

The deal’s completion caps a months-long saga in which Musk, the founder and owner of Tesla and SpaceX, first offered to buy the social media platform and then tried to walk away, sparking a court battle.

Musk agreed to return to his original offer earlier this month and was given until Friday to finalize the deal. The two sides would have been forced to return to court if the deal had not gone through.

He previously accused the outgoing executives of misleading him about the number of spam accounts on the platform and slammed them for content moderation and other issues, leading to his attempt to back down from the purchase .

But Musk, the world’s richest person, seems to have welcomed his new venture ever since.

He walked into Twitter headquarters Wednesday with a big grin and a china sink in hand, before tweeting, “Let this sink in.” He also changed the description on his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit.”

He also tried to allay staff fears that major layoffs were imminent, assuring advertisers that his previous criticism of Twitter’s moderation rules wouldn’t hurt its appeal.

“Of course, Twitter can’t become a hellscape where anything can be said without consequences!” Musk said in an open letter to advertisers earlier Thursday.

The Washington Post reported last week, citing interviews and documents, that Musk had told potential investors he planned to shed up to 75 percent of Twitter’s workforce. That would mean thousands more layoffs than previous management originally planned.

Musk has indicated that he sees Twitter as the basis for creating a “super app” that offers everything from money transfers to shopping and ride-hailing.

The deal also means that Twitter will once again be a private company, at least in the short term. The company will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, according to a delisting announcement on Friday.

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Twitter is suing Elon Musk to force a $44 billion acquisition deal

The journey to Musk’s acquisition began on April 4, when Musk announced a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter — making him its largest shareholder.

He then agreed to join Twitter’s board of directors, only to fight back at the last minute and offer to buy the company for $54.20 per share instead, an offer that Twitter wasn’t sure if another of to interpret Musk’s cannabis jokes.

Musk’s offer was genuine, and the two sides settled on the price he proposed. This was done without Musk conducting due diligence on the company’s confidential information, as is usual in an acquisition.

In the weeks that followed, Musk had concerns. He publicly complained that he believed Twitter’s spam accounts were significantly higher than Twitter’s estimate, published in regulatory filings, of less than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users. His lawyers then accused Twitter of not complying with his requests for information on the subject.

The acrimony led to Musk telling Twitter on July 8 that he was canceling their deal on the grounds that Twitter had misled him about the bots and failed to cooperate with him. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk in Delaware, where the company is incorporated, to force him to complete the deal.

By then, shares of social media companies and the broader stock market had tumbled on fears that the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes to fight inflation will push the US economy into recession. Twitter accused Musk of buyer’s remorse, arguing he wanted out of the deal because he thought he overpaid.

Most legal analysts said Twitter has the strongest arguments and would likely prevail in court. Nor did their view change after former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko whistleblowed in August, claiming the company had failed to disclose weaknesses in its security and privacy practices.

On Oct. 4, just as Musk was set to be fired by Twitter’s attorneys ahead of their trial later in the month, he did another about-face and offered to go through with the deal as promised.

– With files from Reuters

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