Twitter’s top brass gutted as Elon Musk’s takeover begins

Some of Twitter’s C-suite has reportedly been flushed out by the company’s new owner with its CEO, CFO, and legal head all sacked on Elon Musk’s first day at the helm.

Elon Musk reportedly finalized his $44 billion takeover of social media platform Twitter on Oct. 27 and has started his tenure at the company by cleaning house at the upper executive level.

According to sources from multiple outlets, CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde are reported to have been sacked with Musk accusing them of misleading him over the number of spam accounts on the platform.

Agrawal and Segal were “escorted out” of the company’s headquarters when the deal closed according to Reuters sources.

Musk had previously attempted to back out of the deal to buy Twitter in July accusing the company of making “false and misleading representations” regarding the number of spam and fake accounts.

With the deal now closed, Musk looks to change the platform into a bastion of free speech, change the algorithms to prevent political echo chambers, and remove all fake and spam accounts.

In an open letter to Twitter advertisers on Oct. 27 Musk further reiterated his motivations for buying Twitter, saying it is important for the “future of civilization to have a common digital town square” free from political polarization.

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

He added he purchased the platform “to help humanity, whom I love” and penned his aspirations for Twitter to become the “most respected advertising platform in the world.”

Musk is aware of the “meme-ability” of the prolonged deal and was filmed walking into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Oct. 26 carrying a sink tweeting “let that sink in” while also changing his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit.”

Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

On Oct. 20 The Washington Post reported Musk planned to cut up to 75% of Twitter's staff, but a report from Bloomberg days later disclosed that Musk told Twitter staff on Oct. 26 during his visit that the statements were false and he doesn’t plan to sack any staff. However, those at the top of the Twitter tree have just found out otherwise.

<div>Friday after-work drinks with Twitter's new owner Elon Musk, who's in?</div>

Acquisition

After Elon Musk signaled his intention to continue the deal to buy the social media platform earlier in October, reports are emerging that the acquisition is almost over.

Crypto-friendly billionaire Elon Musk is set to finalize the acquisition of social media platform Twitter by Friday, Oct. 28 which brings to a close the protracted Musk-Twitter saga.

On Oct. 24 Musk vowed to the banks assisting with the roughly $13 billion of financing for the deal that it would be closed by the end of the week and the banks have completed the final credit agreement, one of the last steps before sending the money to Musk according to Bloomberg sources.

Musk has also reportedly notified his co-investors who are helping him fund the acquisition by sending over paperwork for the financing commitment according to Reuters sources which include venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, crypto exchange Binance, and Qatar’s Investment Authority.

During a conference in Saudi Arabia on Oct. 25, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao reaffirmed his commitment to backing Musk’s takeover, as per Bloomberg.

The latest developments in the deal point to Musk seemingly adhering to a court-issued deadline set by a Delaware judge in early October where Musk filed his intention to proceed with closing the deal at the original $44 billion price after previously wanting to back out in July.

Musk intends to close the transaction at a price of $54.20 per share. Twitter stock prices jumped on the news, closing at $52.78 a share and up 2.45% for the day as per Yahoo Finance.

In the past, Musk has highlighted many areas of the platform he wishes to change with his stated “top priority” being to cut down on crypto scam tweets and at one time planned to charge users 0.1 Dogecoin (DOGE) — much less than half a cent — to post on Twitter but later admitted it wouldn’t be feasible.

Crypto wallets on Twitter?

The news comes a few days after rumors emerged that Twitter may be working on a cryptocurrency wallet according to Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong who made Forbes 30 under 30 for her high-profile tech leak scoops.

On Oct. 25 she tweeted the platform was working on a “wallet prototype” that supports “crypto deposit and withdrawal” but did not provide evidence or a source for her claim. Cointelegraph has reached out to Twitter for comment.

Meanwhile, news of Musk’s deal nearing its end comes as internal documents from Twitter seen by Reuters on Oct. 26 reveal the platform is struggling to retain its most active users, those who log in to the platform up to seven days a week and tweet a minimum of three times a week.

While these heavy users are less than 10% of the total monthly overall users they account for a massive 90% of all tweets on the platform and around half of Twitter's global revenue.

The leaked research also found over the last two years the topics of interest among English-speaking heavy users have shifted with one of the highest-growing topics being cryptocurrency and interest in news, sports, and entertainment has seen a decline.

twitter deal