In a move that places one of the leading forums for international dialogue in the hands of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk took control of Twitter and ousted its top executives, according to US media reports late Thursday.
According to unnamed sources cited by the Washington Post and CNBC, Musk fired the company’s chief executive officer, Parag Agrawal, as well as its chief financial officer and head of legal policy, trust, and safety.
Agrawal moved to court to enforce the provisions of a takeover agreement that the Tesla CEO had attempted to elude.
The revelations surfaced hours before Musk was supposed to finalize his on-again, off-again agreement to buy the social media network, according to a court-appointed deadline.
Musk stated in a tweet on Thursday that he was purchasing Twitter because it would be beneficial for civilization to have a shared digital town square where a variety of viewpoints could be respectfully discussed.
The multibillionaire even uploaded a photo of himself mingling at the Twitter offices’ coffee shop.
Additionally, before Friday’s session, the New York Stock Exchange announced a pending order to halt trading on Twitter.
Musk attempted to back out of the Twitter deal immediately after his unsolicited bid was accepted in April, and he said in July that he was terminating the agreement because Twitter deceived him about the amount of alleged false “bot” accounts that the business had rejected.
Twitter responded by attempting to show that Musk was inventing justifications for leaving because he had changed his mind.
Twitter launched a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the deal after Musk sought to cancel the sale.
The erratic billionaire gave in and resumed his takeover scheme as a trial approached.
By changing his Twitter handle to “Chief Twit” and broadcasting a video of himself entering the company’s California offices while holding a sink, Musk indicated this week that the acquisition was on track.
Let that really sink in, he joked.
Even though he and investors are “overpaying,” Musk claimed he was “enthusiastic” about the Twitter acquisition during a recent Tesla earnings call.
According to a worker who requested anonymity so that they could speak more freely, some employees who would prefer not to work with Musk have already quit.
But some individuals, including myself, are prepared to give Musk the benefit of the doubt for the time being, the worker remarked of him.
As Musk is notorious for teasing other Twitter users, the prospect of Musk owning Twitter has upset activists who worry about an increase in harassment and false information.
While acknowledging that Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be uttered with no consequences,” Musk said he understands this.
It is anticipated that Musk will make it easier for former US president Donald Trump to rejoin the platform by reducing content monitoring to a bare minimum.
The then-president was prohibited out of fear that he might incite additional violence to overturn his electoral defeat, similar to the deadly attack on the Washington, D.C., Capital.
