Elon Musk Now Owns Twitter, and He Started with Firing Top Execs

Musk has crowned himself head of Twitter, changing his bio to read “Chief Twit”.

Elon Musk Is Buying Twitter for US$44 Billion — Elon Musk now owns Twitter.

Elon Musk, one of the most active tweet posters, is now the owner of Twitter. He has added the social media site to his business empire and celebrated the occasion by firing top executives.

The list of executives who lost their jobs at Twitter included the CEO, Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, the company’s policy chief, and Sean Edgett, the general counsel. Almost all of them were reportedly escorted out by security.

The Twitter execs were paid handsome payouts for the trouble they endured. Agrawal was paid $38.7 million, Segal got $25.4 million, Gadde received $12.5 million, and Personette got $11.2 million.

Musk first initiated the process of buying the company in April. In May, he tried to back out. He changed his mind again on October 4^th when he filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission that affirmed his commitment to the original deal. He did that just before October 6^th and 7^th, when he was scheduled to be deposed. This was a smart move, as the deposition was probably going to be uncomfortable. A judge found that the Tesla CEO likely deleted Signal messages that were relevant to the case. The deadline for the deal was October 28^th.

There is no official word yet on what he plans to do with Twitter. One report stated that he might let go of 75% of staff, but Musk later shared that figure was inaccurate. He didn’t deny that he would fire people. He did share messages with one of his friends in which he talked about cutting staff by requiring a return to the office.

Musk also plans to change how moderation works on the platform. Things will probably change so that people like former President Donald Trump will be able to tweet anything without the fear of getting permanently banned from the platform.

The entrepreneur might also transform Twitter to create “X, the everything app.” It might be similar to China’s WeChat app. That app was first a messaging platform, but now it encompasses multiple businesses, from shopping to payments and gaming. Musk will share more about his plans with the social media platform’s employees on Friday.