Elon Musk acquires Twitter; Fires CEO Parag Agarwal, CFO and others

The AFP news agency reported that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter and fired top executives from him. This came before the Friday deadline to complete their purchase from the platform. Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal, Vijaya Gadde, Head of Legal, Policy and Trust Affairs; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal are among the top executives who have been sacked, the Reuters news agency reported. He accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors about the count of fake accounts on the social media platform.

On Thursday, Musk said he would buy Twitter to "try to help more of humanity, whom I love." Ned Sehgal and Parag Agrawal were at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco when the deal was finalized and was escorted out; sources told Reuters. A day before the deal was completed, Elon Musk visited Twitter headquarters and changed his bio to 'Chief Twit'. He also shared why he acquired Twitter, it's not advertising, but it is important for the future of civilization.

"Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" Musk said in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.

The $44 billion acquisition began on April 4 when Musk announced that he had a 9.2 per cent stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder. He said he planned to clean up the spam accounts, and his lawyers then accused Twitter of failing to comply with his requests for information on the matter. However, in mid-May, Musk changed his mind about the purchase, citing concerns that the number of fake accounts on the microblogging site was higher than Twitter claimed. He then announced that he no longer wished to go through with the $44 billion deal. Twitter argued that the billionaire was legally bound to buy the company and filed a lawsuit.

In early October, when Musk was to be deposed by Twitter's lawyers before the start of his trial, Musk again made a U-turn and offered to complete the deal.