With the deal officially closed, Elon Muk wasted no time put his imprint on his takeover of social media giant Twitter..His first moves are raising speculation that former President Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter, will be allowed back on.Those moves were to fire Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, according to CNBC, which cited unnamed sources. It wasn’t immediately clear who might replace them..It was Gadde who made the decision to kick Trump off Twitter. . Musk arrives carrying sink .The New York Times is reporting Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, has said he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald Trump from the service..Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, sources said. Musk had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform..The agreement between Musk’s legal team and Twitter’s board was reached less than a day before the 5 pm Friday deadline imposed by Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick. .Without a deal, Musk and Twitter would have clashed on opposite sides of a November trial. If he had lost, it would have cost Musk billions of dollars..Under the agreement’s terms, Musk will buy Twitter at the originally-agreed price of $54.20 per share. Musk vowed to take the company private and reshape the platform with an emphasis on free speech..Musk is not alone in the deal. Co-investors, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, are contributing $7.1 billion toward the deal. .Banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are covering $13 billion in debt financing..Musk sent signals throughout the week he intended to finalize the takeover, changing his Twitter handle to ‘Chief Twit’ and posting a video of him barging into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a sink..When his intention to buy Twitter was first made known, Twitter employees, who number 7,500, expressed concerns about where Musk would take Twitter and whether they would be along for the ride..Musk heightened those concerns to anxiety level in early October when he announced the potential of letting go of 75% of the workforce..After dropping off the sink in the Twitter lobby, Musk met with staff, saying he had no intention of slashing employees..Musk posted a message targeted at Twitter’s advertisers, saying he had no intention of turning the social media platform into a “free-for-all hellscape” after critics who were against the deal suggested Musk’s aggressive stance on free speech would enable extremist voices to thrive on the platform..“The reason I acquired Twitter is 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, without resorting to violence,” Musk said..Musk’s long-term plans for Twitter have yet to be written in stone, however, he has called the company an ‘accelerant’ for his goal of creating an “everything app” simply called X, which is expected to mirror the Tencent-owned social media app WeChat, which offers a wide array of services ranging from payments to food delivery and ride-sharing..Earlier this month, Musk said acquisition of Twitter “probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong.”
