Elon Musk assumed ownership of Twitter and reportedly fired the company’s CEO. Musk’s buyout occurred after a lengthy back-and-forth between the two sides.
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, finally completed his purchase of social media platform Twitter (TWTR) on Oct. 27 in a deal that takes the company private, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The acquisition, which was first announced in April, had several challenges along the way, and Musk threatened to back out over claims about the prevalence of Twitter bots. To prevent the takeover, the corporation at one point built a “poison pill” barrier.
But earlier this month, Musk proposed moving ahead again at the original price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share, according to a letter from Musk’s attorneys to Twitter’s lawyers that was also filed with the SEC. Shares of Twitter were suspended from trading after Thursday’s close, last trading at $53.70, and they are getting removed from the S&P 500, a benchmark for the U.S. stock market.
Executive Layoffs and Promises for Change
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Musk plans to replace Parag Agrawal as CEO after firing the executive. That’s according to people with knowledge of the situation who requested to remain anonymous in order to disclose internal discussions. Vijaya Gadde, the organization’s head of legal policy, and Ned Segal, its chief financial officer, were two more executives who were let go.
Vijaya Gadde happens to be the one who made the call to permanently ban former President Donald Trump from the platform. His suspension, according to Twitter, was a result of what was described as his “incitement of violence” in relation to the events surrounding the capitol hill protest on January 6, 2020.
Because he does not believe in “lifelong restrictions,” Musk also intends to stop any permanent platform bans, which might allow previously banned accounts like Trump’s to reappear. However, it is yet unknown whether or when those banned accounts would be permitted to log back in.
Musk also tweeted on Friday that he would “dig into” people who had been “shadowbanned, ghost banned, search banned,” or had had their followers erased, in response to a user’s complaint on Twitter.
These cases involve individuals who aren’t expressly banned but who appear to have had Twitter’s algorithm reduce their social reach without warning.
