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Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.
The deal’s closing removes a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Twitter’s business, employees and shareholders for much of the year. Musk appeared to acknowledge the takeover in a tweet Thursday night saying, “the bird is freed.”
Earlier this week, Musk visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to meet with employees. He also posted an open letter to Twitter advertisers, saying he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all-hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”
“This is not a way to make money,” Musk said in an on-stage interview shortly after making an offer to buy Twitter. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
Musk also pledged to “defeat the spam bots or die trying,” referring to the fake and scam accounts that are often especially active in the replies to his tweets and those of others with large followings on the platform.
Beyond the removal of Twitter’s CEO and other executives, Musk’s takeover could also usher in the return of some measure of influence over the company by founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO in November and left its board in May. While Dorsey has said he will not formally return to Twitter, he has privately discussed the takeover with Musk and offered advice.
Musk is in charge of the social media platform and has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and General Counsel Vijaya Gadde.
Twitter’s stock will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on November 8.
Elon Musk is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; … and owner of Twitter, Inc.. He also says he’s sold $2M worth of his new ‘Burnt Hair’ fragrance in 24 hours. On Twitter, he joked that the beauty venture was “inevitable” considering the punny nature of his last name. “With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” he tweeted on Tuesday. (unquote)
Image courtesy Elon Musk / Twitter
2022-10-29