Musk takes Twitter flight

After months of waffling, lawsuits, verbal mudslinging and the near miss of a full-blown trial, Elon Musk now owns Twitter.

On Thursday night, Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media service, said three people with knowledge of the situation. He also began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the CEO and chief financial officer — getting fired. Musk had arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday and met with engineers and ad executives.

The closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that 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.

Musk’s open approach to speech on Twitter could exacerbate long-simmering issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world. Early tests will come within days, when Brazil elects its president and American voters go to the polls on November 8 for the midterm elections. Twitter said it would prohibit misleading claims about voting and the outcome of elections, but that was before Musk owned it.

“There could be real-world consequences to his leadership,” David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who worked with the United Nations on issues of free speech, said of Musk’s ownership of Twitter. “To the extent that world leaders see they have this space and it’s unmoderated, they could push to see how far they can go.”

The acquisition has been celebrated by some Republicans, who have argued that Twitter censored conservative viewpoints. Researchers have said Twitter’s rules have been essential to countering online hate speech and disinformation. Some advertisers have worried about allowing their brands to appear alongside controversial tweets.

Musk has promised other sweeping changes at Twitter, including new leadership, job cuts and the pursuit of new ways to make money. Twitter, which employs more than 7,500 people, has had difficulties consistently growing its advertising-based business and attracting new users. The firings of the top company executives on Thursday were a sign that Musk intended to move swiftly.

Musk, 51, will be remaking Twitter without having to disclose how it is performing every few months. By taking the company private, he does not need to regularly answer to shareholders and can make changes to the service away from the public’s prying eyes.

Musk, who also runs electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Completing the deal was a victory for Twitter’s board. When Musk agreed to pay $54.20 a share for the company in April, Twitter faced criticism for accepting a price that was too low. But, as the global economy faltered in the ensuing months and Twitter’s stock fell, the deal price appeared to be a win for shareholders, and the board sought to force Musk to abide by the agreement.

A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Twitter executives who were fired Thursday include Parag Agrawal, the CEO; Ned Segal, the chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive; and Sean Edgett, the general counsel, said two people with knowledge of the matter. At least one of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter’s office, they said.

Musk, who is one of Twitter’s most active users and has more than 109 million followers, began accumulating shares in the company this year. In April, he struck the deal to buy the company for $44 billion and said he would lift Twitter’s content moderation policies, eliminate spam, add new features and provide more transparency about the algorithms used to promote content.

“Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he said in a statement in April.

But, within weeks, he began questioning the deal. Musk lashed out at the Twitter executives responsible for content decisions and accused the company of failing to accurately count the spam accounts on its platform. When Agrawal tried debunking Musk’s claims, Musk responded by tweeting a poop emoji.

By July, Musk had decided that he no longer wanted to own Twitter, arguing that he had been misled about the amount of spam on the platform. He announced his intent to abandon the acquisition.