SpaceX chief engineer Elon Musk attends a joint press conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase in Brownsville, Texas, U.S. August 25, 2022 .
Adrées Latif | Reuters
You’re here CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of TwitterCNBC has learned.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning, sources said. Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust and security was also fired, the Washington Post reported.
Musk had until Friday to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter or face a legal battle with the company.
In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy the social media service and make it private. However, Musk quickly began casting doubt on his intentions to follow through on the deal, alleging the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the service.
When Musk said he was ending the deal, Twitter for follow-up the billionaire, alleging that he “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its shareholders because the agreement he signed no longer serves his personal interests”.
Over the next few months, Twitter and Musk would trade barbs through their lawyers as both sides had to go to the Court of Chancery in Delaware to determine the fate of the company and whether it would end up in the hands of the Tesla chief.
Earlier in October, Musk changed his mind and said he wanted to pursue his acquisition of Twitter at the original price of $54.20 per share if the social messaging service dropped its lawsuit. Suspicious of Musk’s motives, Twitter’s lawyers said the “Tesla CEO’s proposal is an invitation to further wrongdoing and delay.”
A Delaware chancery court judge ultimately ruled that Musk had until Oct. 28 to make the Twitter deal or go to trial.
On Thursday, Musk wrote a message intended to reassure advertisers that social messaging services would not turn into “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said without consequences!”
“The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital public square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy way, without resorting to violence. “Musk said in the post. “There is currently a great danger that social media will split into far-right and far-left echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
Musk come at Twitter HQ earlier this week wearing a sink, and documented the event on Twitter, saying “Entering Twitter HQ – let it sink!”
Musk also updated his Twitter description to “Chief Twit.”
