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Elon Musk buy Twitter for $44 billion According to a filing with the US government, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has completed his $44 billion (£38.1 billion) buyout of Twitter.
Who is Elon Musk?
Mr. Musk, who was born in South Africa, showed early entrepreneurial abilities, going door-to-door with his brother selling handmade chocolate Easter eggs and inventing his first computer game at the age of 12.His upbringing was regarded as traumatic, influenced by his parent's divorce, bullying at school, and his own trouble picking up on social signs due to Asperger's Syndrome. He left home for college as soon as he could, first to Canada and then to the United States, where he studied economics and physics at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.
In a 2010 piece for Marie Claire, his first wife, Justine Musk, a writer who met Mr. Musk in college and married him in 2000, stated that Mr. Musk was "not a man who takes no for an answer" even before his fortune.
"The urge to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not miraculously go off when he returned home," she remembered, adding that while dancing at their wedding, he informed her, "I am the alpha in this relationship."
"The bird is freed," Musk tweeted, later adding, "let the good times flow."
After Elon Musk buys Twitter. several top executives, including the CEO, Parag Agrawal, are said to have been sacked.
According to Reuters, Mr. Agrawal and two other executives were removed from Twitter's San Francisco offices on Thursday evening.
The agreement puts an end to months of legal bickering, but also raises concerns about the platform's future direction.
On Thursday, the transaction was confirmed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The New York Stock Exchange announced on Friday that trade in Twitter's shares had been halted, citing a "merger effective" reason.
According to US media sources, Mr. Agrawal's chief financial officer, Ned Segal, and the firm's senior legal and policy leader, Vijaya Gadde, are both going.
Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, appeared to confirm the executives' departure. He congratulated all three in a tweet for their "combined contribution to Twitter," describing them as "huge talents" and "wonderful beings."
Meanwhile, Bret Taylor, who had been Twitter's chairman since last November, updated his LinkedIn page to reflect his departure.
Mr. Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," has blasted Twitter's management and moderation rules.
They fought over the terms of the acquisition, with Mr. Musk accusing Twitter of supplying false information about the company's user counts.
He has also stated that he will lift prohibitions on suspended users, which may include former US President Donald Trump, who was barred following the January 2021 Capitol incident.
Twitter warned at the moment that Mr. Trump may provoke greater bloodshed. Mr. Musk, on the other hand, has called the restriction "foolish."
Mr. Musk stated earlier this week that he did not want the platform to become an echo chamber for hate and divisiveness. "Obviously, Twitter cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be uttered with no consequences!" he tweeted.
The deal has sparked debate among Twitter users about how the site would appear under Mr. Musk's leadership.
There are concerns that more permissive free speech regulations will allow users who have been banned for hate speech or misinformation to return to the site. Along with Mr. Trump, this might include political fanatics, QAnon supporters, and Covid-19 denialists.
In response to Mr. Musk's letter, Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market, tweeted, "In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU regulations," implying that regulators will be stern on any easing of Twitter's standards.
Mr. Musk stated earlier this week that he did not want the platform to become an echo chamber for hate and divisiveness. "Obviously, Twitter cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be uttered with no consequences!" he tweeted.
The deal has sparked debate among Twitter users about how the site would appear under Mr. Musk's leadership.
There are concerns that more permissive free speech regulations will allow users who have been banned for hate speech or misinformation to return to the site. Along with Mr. Trump, this might include political fanatics, QAnon supporters, and Covid-19 denialists.
In response to Mr. Musk's letter, Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market, tweeted, "In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU regulations," implying that regulators will be stern on any easing of Twitter's standards.
Mr. Musk is a controversial personality, in addition to being the world's richest person, with a fortune of $250 billion.
He amassed his money through the electric automobile startup Tesla and the space exploration company Space X. However, he has garnered extra notoriety for his vocal engagement in unrelated subjects, frequently via Twitter, ranging from geopolitical concerns such as the crisis in Ukraine to the rescue of schoolboys trapped in a Thai cave.
It is unclear whether the purge of senior management is a precursor to company-wide job layoffs. Earlier rumors said that 75% of the social media business's employees would be laid off, but such claims were "inaccurate," according to Ross Gerber, a stakeholder in both Twitter and Mr. Musk's other company Tesla.
"Twitter has a lot of bright individuals, particularly on the technical side, and they want to keep as much of that expertise as possible," Mr. Gerber told the BBC.
However, he stated that job losses might reach well beyond high management. Mr. Musk suggested that he would consider laying off product managers and terminating projects "that aren't going anywhere."
A long road
He amassed his money through the electric automobile startup Tesla and the space exploration company Space X. However, he has garnered extra notoriety for his vocal engagement in unrelated subjects, frequently via Twitter, ranging from geopolitical concerns such as the crisis in Ukraine to the rescue of schoolboys trapped in a Thai cave.
It is unclear whether the purge of senior management is a precursor to company-wide job layoffs. Earlier rumors said that 75% of the social media business's employees would be laid off, but such claims were "inaccurate," according to Ross Gerber, a stakeholder in both Twitter and Mr. Musk's other company Tesla.
"Twitter has a lot of bright individuals, particularly on the technical side, and they want to keep as much of that expertise as possible," Mr. Gerber told the BBC.
However, he stated that job losses might reach well beyond high management. Mr. Musk suggested that he would consider laying off product managers and terminating projects "that aren't going anywhere."
A long road
Until recently, it looked that the merger may possibly fail.
After investing in Twitter at the beginning of the year, Mr. Musk made his $44 billion bid in April, a price that appeared to be too expensive almost as soon as it was approved.
He stated that he was purchasing it because he wanted "civilization to have a common digital town square," and that he intended to wipe up spam accounts and keep the platform as a space for free speech.
However, by the summer, he had reconsidered the acquisition, claiming worries that the number of bogus accounts on the network was more than Twitter indicated.
Twitter officials eventually initiated legal action to keep Mr. Musk to his offer, and while he recently confessed that he and the other investors in the agreement were "overpaying for Twitter right now," the sale appears to have gone through.
However, suspicion over Mr. Musk's plans for the platform lingers.
Change ahead
He updated his Twitter profile to "Chief Twit" earlier this week, and some observers suspect he may take over the corporation himself.
Mr. Musk also posted a video of himself lugging a sink into Twitter's San Francisco offices, with the message "let that sink in!"
Twitter has yet to make a statement about its new management team. However, whoever becomes the company's future CEO, it is obvious that Mr. Musk will ultimately be in control - a job he will have to reconcile with his senior responsibilities at both Tesla and SpaceX.
He briefly served on Twitter's board earlier this year and criticized the company's direction.
Mr. Musk discussed how Mr. Agrawal didn't grasp how to address the social media platform's faults in private communications revealed in court documents.
Mr. Musk also stated that his ambitions for Twitter include more ambitious upgrades, such as "X, the app for everything."
Some speculate that this might be similar to the enormously successful Chinese app WeChat, a form of "super app" that combines many services such as texting, social networking, payments, and food ordering.