Tesla CEO Elon Musk Takes Control of Twitter
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and ousted the CEO, chief financial officer and the company’s top lawyer, two people familiar with the deal said Oct. 27.
The people wouldn’t say if all the paperwork for the deal, originally valued at $44 billion, had been signed or if the deal has closed. But they said Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde. Neither person wanted to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the deal.
A few hours later, Musk tweeted, “the bird has been freed,” a reference to Twitter’s logo.
the bird is freed — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
The departures came just hours before a deadline set by a Delaware judge to finalize the deal on Oct. 28. She threatened to schedule a trial if no agreement was reached.
Although they came quickly, the major personnel moves had been widely expected and almost certainly are the first of many major changes the mercurial Musk will make.
Musk privately clashed with Agrawal in April, immediately before deciding to make a bid for the company, according to text messages later revealed in court filings.
Gadde by Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg News
About the same time, he used Twitter to criticize Gadde, the company’s top lawyer. His tweets were followed by a wave of harassment of Gadde from other Twitter accounts. For Gadde, an 11-year Twitter employee who also heads public policy and safety, the harassment included racist and misogynistic attacks, in addition to calls for Musk to fire her. On Oct. 27, after she was fired, the harassing tweets lit up once again.
Musk’s changes will be aimed at increasing Twitter’s subscriber base and revenue.
In his first big move earlier on Oct. 27, Musk tried to soothe leery Twitter advertisers saying that he is buying the platform to help humanity and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
The message appeared to be aimed at addressing concerns among advertisers — Twitter’s chief source of revenue — that Musk’s plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and drive away users.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk wrote in an uncharacteristically long message for the Tesla CEO, who typically projects his thoughts in one-line tweets.
He continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
Musk has previously expressed distaste for advertising and Twitter’s dependence on it, suggesting more emphasis on other business models such as paid subscriptions that won’t allow big corporations to dictate policy on how social media operates. But on Oct. 27, he assured advertisers he wants Twitter to be “the most respected advertising platform in the world.”
The note is a shift from Musk’s position that Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
But it’s also a realization that having no content moderation is bad for business, putting Twitter at risk of losing advertisers and subscribers, she said.
“You do not want a place where consumers just simply are bombarded with things they do not want to hear about, and the platform takes no responsibility,” Yildirim said.
Musk said Twitter should be “warm and welcoming to all” and enable users to choose the experience they want to have.
The Oct. 28 deadline to close the deal was ordered by the Delaware Chancery Court in early October. It was the latest step in a battle that began in April with Musk signing a deal to acquire Twitter, then trying to back out of it, leading Twitter to sue the Tesla CEO to force him to go through with the acquisition. If the two sides didn’t meet the Oct. 28 deadline, the next step might have been a November trial that could have led to a judge forcing Musk to complete the deal.
But Musk has been signaling that the deal was going through. He strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters Oct. 26 carrying a porcelain sink, changed his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit,” and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!”
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
And overnight the New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading in shares of Twitter before the opening bell Oct. 28 in anticipation of the company going private under Musk.
By AP Business Writers Barbara Ortutay, Tom Krisher and Matt O’Brien
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