The buyout of Tesla’s CEO caps a six-month saga over the social media giant’s future.
Elon Musk has officially taken control of Twitter after finalizing a $44 billion deal to buy the social media network.
In one of his first decisions at the helm of the social media giant, Musk, the world’s richest man, fired CEO Parag Agrawal and two other senior executives, several media outlets based in the United States, citing people familiar with the matter.
CFO Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, the top executive for legal policy, trust and security, were also fired, according to reports.
Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, was also fired, the Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed source.
Musk and Twitter have not confirmed the layoffs.
The Tesla CEO’s buyout caps a six-month saga in which Twitter initially resisted Musk’s buyout offer and then sued the billionaire after he indicated it would scrap the deal over concerns about email accounts spam and whistleblower claims about lax cybersecurity practices.
Musk’s interest in the platform has become a lightning rod for the debate about free speech in the digital age. Critics have expressed concern that Musk’s reign could mean an open battle for hate speech and disinformation, while many conservatives have heralded the acquisition as a corrective to Big Tech’s censorship of politically-minded views. incorrect
Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has criticized Twitter’s moderation policies and opposed censorship that goes beyond the law’s requirements. In May, Musk said he would reinstate former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which was removed for allegedly inciting violence following the January 6 riots at the US Capitol. Musk has also expressed unease with the platform’s reliance on advertising and is widely expected to oversee major job cuts at the company, although he reportedly denied a Washington Post report that suggests it plans to cut 75 percent of the workforce.
In a lengthy message posted on Twitter before the buyout deadline Friday, Musk, who previously changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit,” denied any intention to turn Twitter into a “hellscape free-for-all.” .
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy way, without resorting to violence,” he said.
Musk, who has presented himself as a moderate, regularly veers into politics and has drawn criticism with unorthodox proposals for handling geopolitical turning points ranging from Taiwan to Ukraine.
The billionaire earlier this year announced he would vote Republican in the upcoming election as Democrats had become the “party of division and hate,” but later said he supported moderate candidates from ‘both parties.