Elon Musk completes Twitter buyout, fires top execs

Elon Musk’s Twitter deal is finally done bringing to the end a saga that saw the company take the billionaire to court when he tried to back out of the deal.  

Also Read: A brief history of Elon Musk’s bid to buy-not buy-but buy Twitter

Musk, however, has fired the company’s top executives in one of his first moves after taking over the company.

Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett, and head of legal policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde, as reported by the Washington Post and CNBC, citing unnamed sources. Hours after the news of him firing execs first broke, on Thursday night, he Tweeted ‘the bird is freed’.

Musk had earlier criticized Gadde on his Twitter account, since she was involved in the decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform. His fallout with Agrawal also became public, with Musk tweeting poop emojis at the CEO, who took over for founder Jack Dorsey late last year. Agrawal went to court to hold Musk to the terms of a takeover deal he had tried to escape.

The Tesla founder was rumoured to say that he wants to cut 75% of Twitter’s staff, though he later denied that statement. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone thanked Agrawal, Segal and Gadde for their "collective contribution" to the business.

Musk tweeted on Thursday that he was buying Twitter "because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner." 

He also changed his Twitter profile to read "Chief Twit". The billionaire even shared a picture of himself socializing at a coffee bar at Twitter headquarters.

Earlier this week Musk tweeted a video of himself walking into Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco carrying a kitchen sink with the caption: "let that sink in!"

Musk's early investments in Twitter initially escaped public attention. In January, he began making regular purchases of shares, so that by the middle of March he had accumulated a 5% stake in the firm.

The road to the Twitter deal was indeed a long and different one. In April, it caught public attention when Musk, a prolific Twitter user, was revealed as Twitter's largest shareholder, announced his intention to buy the company for $44billion.

He then said he planned to clean up spam accounts and preserve the platform as a venue for free speech. But by mid-May or June he had begun to change his mind about the purchase, citing concerns that the number of fake accounts on the platform was higher than Twitter claimed.

In July he said he was no longer interested to acquire the company. Twitter, however, argued the billionaire was legally committed to the acquisition and eventually filed a lawsuit to hold him to the deal. After months of court battle, in early October, Musk revived his takeover plans for the company on condition that legal proceedings were paused.

Musk is expected to share more about his plan for Twitter with employees on Friday.