Thursday, March 28, 2024

Elon Musk takes control of Twitter, fires top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal

Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal is among executives planning to depart as Elon Musk completes his $44 billion deal to take over the social network, Bloomberg reported.

Also leaving are Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017; and Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public.

Musk had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.

“The bird is freed,” Musk tweeted, referencing Twitter’s bird logo.

He also said on Thursday he did not buy Twitter to make more money but “to try to help humanity, whom I love.”

The Twitter deal is the culmination of a remarkable saga, full of twists and turns, that sowed doubt over whether Musk would complete the deal.

It began on April 4, when Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in the company, making him its largest shareholder. Musk then agreed to join Twitter’s board, only to balk at the last minute and offer to buy the company instead for $54.20 per share.

In the weeks that followed, Musk had second thoughts. He complained publicly that he believed Twitter’s spam accounts were significantly higher than Twitter’s estimate, published in regulatory filings, of less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users. His lawyers then accused Twitter of not complying with his requests for information on the subject, according to Reuters.

Then Musk gave notice to Twitter on July 8 that he was terminating their deal on the grounds that Twitter misled him about the bots and did not cooperate with him. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk in Delaware, where the company is incorporated, to force him to complete the deal.

Last, he performed another u-turn and offered to complete the deal as promised.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

(More to follow)

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