After months spent trying to undo the deal he initiated, Tesla founder Elon Musk will pay $44 billion to take ownership of Twitter, honoring an agreement made in April.
The news came through late yesterday in a mix of media reports and, of course, tweets. Musk changed his bio to read “Chief Twit” and tweeted “the bird is freed.” Twitter’s shares were suspended from trading today, the New York Stock Exchange said. Official confirmation, from Twitter’s press office or from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, is still pending.
That confirmation will bring to a close to a week of high drama at Twitter. Late yesterday, the Washington Post reported that several top executives had been fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief counsel Sean Edgett, and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, who Musk has suggested caused the platform to favor liberal political views. Reuters reported that the executives were escorted from Twitter’s San Francisco HQ. In a tweet, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone thanked the three executives for their “collective contribution” to the social network.
The deal completes Musk’s metamorphosis from Twitter super user, to vocal critic, to owner. The platform and the company behind it appear to be set for major changes. The entrepreneur has said he would allow former US president Donald Trump back onto the platform and accused Twitter’s moderation policies of causing a perception of liberal bias. In text messages released during his attempt to get out of the deal, Musk discussed staff cuts.
Musk first offered to buy Twitter in April, after purchasing some 10 percent of the company’s shares and attempting and then declining to join its board. Twitter’s board initially moved to resist a takeover, but later in the month announced that it had accepted Musk’s offer to purchase the company for $44 billion, in a deal including a $1 billion termination fee should either party choose to walk away.
Almost immediately, the company lost some of its top talent. Musk made clear he wanted major changes at Twitter, which despite its cultural clout in politics and media has lagged behind other social networks in scale and profitability.
Musk said he was concerned about political bias and wanted to see Twitter support “free speech” by restricting only posts that broke the law, a policy that in the US would allow hate speech and other content currently banned. Activists, company insiders, and some minority shareholders began to worry that Twitter under Musk would become a haven for trolls and harassment.
Gadde, who led Twitter’s work on moderation, was pummeled with online abuse after Musk tweeted a meme featuring her image that implied she caused the platform’s content moderation to favor liberal views. (Twitter’s own research has indicated that the platform in fact favors right-wing politicians and media outlets).
Musk’s ardor for Twitter faded weeks after the deal was agreed, in the wake of a broad selloff on the stock market. The entrepreneur claimed that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” alleging that the company had lied about the number of bots in figures disclosed in financial filings.
