Elon Musk Takes Control Of Twitter For $44 Billion; Fires CEO From India On Day #1

Late Thursday US media reported that Elon Musk took control of Twitter and fired its top executives.

Elon Musk Acquiring Twitter

 With this move, one of the top platforms for global discourse in the hands of the world’s richest man.

To start with, Musk sacked chief executive Parag Agrawal, as well as the company’s chief financial officer and its head of legal policy, trust and safety, as per the media reports.

In response, Agrawal went to court to hold the Tesla chief to the terms of a takeover deal he had tried to escape.

Interestingly these reports came hours before the court-appointed deadline for Musk to seal his on-again, off-again deal to purchase the social media network.

Future of Civilization

Earlier on Thursday, Musk tweeted that he was buying Twitter “because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.”

Musk even shared a picture of himself socializing at a coffee bar at Twitter headquarters.

In the meantime, the New York Stock Exchange posted a pending order to suspend trading in Twitter before Friday’s session.

Prior to this, Musk tried to step back from the Twitter deal soon after his unsolicited offer was accepted in April.

While canceling the contract in July he said that he was misled by Twitter over the number of fake “bot” accounts — allegations rejected by the company.

On the other hand, Twitter sought to prove Musk was contriving excuses to walk away simply because he changed his mind.

Afterworld Twitter filed a lawsuit to hold Musk to the agreement when Musk sought to terminate the sale.

Twitter Deal On Track

It appears that the unpredictable billionaire capitulated and revived his takeover plan with a trial looming.

Then Musk signaled the deal was on track this week by changing his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit”.

 He has posted a video of himself walking into the company’s California headquarters carrying a sink.

Quite dramatically he quipped “Let that sink in!”.

Musk said that he was “excited” about the Twitter deal even though he and investors are “overpaying” during a recent Tesla earnings call.

Twitter Free-for-all 

After this move, some of the  employees who would prefer not to work for Musk have already left, according to a worker who asked to remain anonymous.

Further adding, “But a portion of people, including me, are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now,”.

Basically, the idea of Musk running Twitter has alarmed activists.

They fear a surge in harassment and misinformation and why not as Musk himself is known for trolling other Twitter users.

Contrary to the belief, Musk responded that he realizes Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences.”

Inline with the comment, he has vowed to dial content moderation back to a bare minimum.

Also expecting to clear the way for former US president Donald Trump to return to the platform.

For the unaware, he was blocked due to concerns he would ignite more violence like the deadly attack on the Capitol in Washington to overturn his election loss.