Elon Musk Now Owns Twitter

After months spent attempting to undo the deal he initiated, Tesla founder Elon Musk can pay $44 billion to take possession of Twitter, honoring an settlement made in April.

The information got here by late yesterday in a mixture of media stories and, in fact, tweets. Musk modified his bio to learn “Chief Twit” and tweeted “the chook is freed.” Twitter’s shares had been suspended from buying and selling at present, the New York Inventory Change mentioned. Official affirmation, from Twitter’s press workplace or from the US Securities and Change Fee, continues to be pending.

That affirmation will bring to a standstill to per week of excessive drama at Twitter. Late yesterday, the Washington Submit reported that a number of prime executives had been fired, together with CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief counsel Sean Edgett, and coverage chief Vijaya Gadde, who Musk has prompt induced the platform to favor liberal political beliefs. Reuters reported that the executives had been escorted from Twitter’s San Francisco HQ. In a tweet, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone thanked the three executives for his or her “collective contribution” to the social community.

The deal completes Musk’s metamorphosis from Twitter tremendous consumer, to vocal critic, to proprietor. The platform and the corporate behind it look like set for main modifications. The entrepreneur has mentioned he would permit former US president Donald Trump again onto the platform and accused Twitter’s moderation insurance policies of inflicting a notion of liberal bias. In textual content messages launched throughout his try to get out of the deal, Musk mentioned workers cuts.

Musk first supplied to purchase Twitter in April, after buying some 10 p.c of the corporate’s shares and trying after which declining to affix its board. Twitter’s board initially moved to withstand a takeover, however later within the month introduced that it had accepted Musk’s supply to buy the corporate for $44 billion, in a deal together with a $1 billion termination payment ought to both celebration select to stroll away.

Virtually instantly, the corporate misplaced a few of its prime expertise. Musk made clear he wished main modifications at Twitter, which regardless of its cultural clout in politics and media has lagged behind different social networks in scale and profitability.

Musk mentioned he was involved about political bias and wished to see Twitter assist “free speech” by limiting solely posts that broke the regulation, a coverage that within the US would permit hate speech and different content material at the moment banned. Activists, firm insiders, and a few minority shareholders started to fret that Twitter below Musk would develop into a haven for trolls and harassment.

Gadde, who led Twitter’s work on moderation, was pummeled with on-line abuse after Musk tweeted a meme that includes her picture that implied she induced the platform’s content material moderation to favor liberal views. (Twitter’s personal analysis has indicated that the platform the truth is favors right-wing politicians and media shops).

Musk’s ardor for Twitter light weeks after the deal was agreed, within the wake of a broad selloff on the inventory market. The entrepreneur claimed that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” alleging that the corporate had lied concerning the variety of bots in figures disclosed in monetary filings.