Elon Musk has become Twitter Inc's owner, firing top executives and providing little clarity over how he will achieve the lofty ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"The bird is freed," he tweeted, referencing Twitter's bird logo in an apparent nod to his desire to see the company have fewer limits on content that can be posted.
The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc has, however, also said he wants to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division.
Other goals include wanting to "defeat" spam bots on Twitter and make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.
Yet Musk has not offered details on how he will achieve all this and who will run the company.
He has said he plans to cut jobs, leaving Twitter's approximately 7500 employees fretting about their future.
He also said on Thursday he did not buy Twitter to make more money but "to try to help humanity, whom I love."
Musk terminated Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. He accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.
Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter's San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, sources said.
Before closing the $US44 billion ($A68 billion) acquisition Musk walked into Twitter's headquarters on Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink, subsequently tweeting "let that sink in." He changed his description in his Twitter profile to "Chief Twit."
He also tried to calm fears among employees that major layoffs are coming and assured advertisers that his past criticism of Twitter's content moderation rules would not harm its appeal.
Musk said in May he would reverse the ban on Donald Trump, who was removed after the attack on the US Capitol, although the former US president has said he won't return to the platform.
Musk has also indicated he sees Twitter as a foundation for creating a "super app" that offers everything from money transfers to shopping and ride-hailing.
The deal saga began on April 4, when Musk disclosed a 9.2 per cent stake in the company, making him its largest shareholder.
The world's richest person then agreed to join Twitter's board, only to baulk at the last minute and offer to buy the company instead for $US54.20 per share.
Over the course of just one weekend later in April, the two sides reached a deal at the price he suggested.
In the weeks that followed, Musk had second thoughts. He complained publicly that he believed Twitter's spam accounts were significantly higher than Twitter's estimate, published in regulatory filings, of less than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active users.
The acrimony resulted in Musk giving notice to Twitter on July 8 that he was terminating their deal on the grounds that Twitter misled him about the bots and did not cooperate with him. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk in Delaware, where the company is incorporated, to force him to complete the deal.
Most legal analysts said Twitter had the strongest arguments and would likely prevail in court.
On October 4, just as Musk was set to be deposed by Twitter's lawyers ahead of the start of their trial later in the month, he performed another u-turn and offered to complete the deal as promised.
He managed to do that, just one day ahead of an October 28 deadline given by the Delaware judge to avoid going to trial.
Australian Associated Press
