Elon Musk completes $44B deal to take over Twitter, fires CEO

Elon Musk has reportedly completed his 44-billion dollar deal to take over Twitter, and sources say he swiftly cleaned house.

Musk fired several Twitter executives, including the Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and the head of Twitter’s legal department Vijaya Gadde.

The question now is what the billionaire Tesla CEO will actually do with the social media platform.

An original statement from Musk said he was planning to lay-off 75 per cent of Twitter’s San Francisco-based staff, but he has now retracted that claim.

But he does admit to planning big changes, including relaxing content restrictions.

Late Thursday, Musk tweeted, “the bird is freed,” a reference to Twitter’s logo.

the bird is freed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

Many are looking to see if he will welcome back a number of influential conservative figures banned for violating Twitter’s rules

Musk has said he thinks Twitter is important to the future of civilization, calling it “a common digital town square”.

For months it wasn’t even clear if he wanted to control the company at all.

After Musk signed a deal to acquire Twitter in April, he tried to back out of it, leading the company to sue him to force him to go through with the acquisition.

Friday’s deadline to close the deal was ordered by the Delaware Chancery Court in early October.

Musk has been signaling more recently that the deal is going through. He strolled into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink, changed his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit,” and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ, let that sink in!”

Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022