9:02 am, October 28, 2022
Tesla boss Elon Musk has finally completed his drawn out takeover of Twitter and immediately got to work by sacking several of the platform’s top executives.
The EV mogul was seen bizarrely carrying a sink into the firm’s offices on (Wednesday) and has now seemingly confirmed the deal is done.
Tweeting tweeting shortly before 5am UK time this morning (Friday), he wrote: ‘the bird is freed’ in reference to his £38bn ($44bn) acquisition of the platform.
Twitter has not yet published any further statement confirming the deal, but several senior figures and board members, including Brett Taylor, who had served as the company’s chairman, have changed their social media profiles to reflect that they no longer work for the company.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
The Times reports that Musk’s first act upon taking charge of the company was to dismiss chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and general counsel and head of safety, Vijaya Gadde.
Mr Musk had publicly criticised both Agrawal and Gadde over Twitter policy in the months leading up to the takeover.
His chief criticism of the social media platform has been its policing of ‘free speech’ – he has said he believes Twitter has been overzealous in its content moderation.
Musk is expected to speak to Twitter employees directly today, according to an internal memo cited in several media outlets.
A US court gave Musk until today to close his April agreement to acquire the company after he tried to back out of the deal, leading to a lawsuit from Twitter to push through the acquisition.
Yesterday, Musk posted a statement aimed at Twitter’s advertisers where he said he was acquiring the platform because he believed it was important to have a space where ‘a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner’.
He has also updated his bio on the social media platform to ‘Chief Twit’ in a further nod to the deal being completed.
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
Musk is said to have told staff during his visit to Twitter’s head office on Wednesday that it was not true that he was planning on cutting up to 75 per cent of staff after acquiring the company.
It had previously been reported that the billionaire told investors he planned to cut around three-quarters of the firm’s 7,500 employees.
Staff, Twitter users and industry experts are waiting to see what plans Musk has for the platform.
