In a reference to Twitter's logo, billionaire Musk tweeted "the bird is freed," after reportedly firing several top executives, including the chief executive, Parag Agrawal. Musk earlier changed his Twitter bio to "Chief Twit."
Other senior figures ousted by Musk reportedly included Ned Segal, chief financial officer, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety.
The finalized deal caps a chaotic acquisition saga that began with Musk originally offering to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April – a deal that Twitter accepted – before Musk in May put the takeover "temporarily on hold" because of a dispute over the number of fake or spam accounts that Twitter claimed to have.
In July, Musk decided he no longer wanted to buy Twitter and attempted to call off the purchase. Twitter in turn filed a lawsuit to force Musk to go on with the sale. By October, Musk once again reversed course by proposing a purchase at the original price.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
Musk's executive firings followed news last week that the billionaire planned to slash Twitter staff numbers by 75% in an effort to pay down the company's debt burden. Musk later dismissed those reports, saying he would not cut that amount of employees.
Attention now turns to Twitter's future direction, and how Musk's plans will affect the social media platform with more than 230 million 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," he said in a statement posted to his Twitter account on Thursday.
This article, "Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Twitter Takeover, Fires Top Executives, and Makes Himself CEO" first appeared on MacRumors.com
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