The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not confirm that legal administration of the deal, originally valued at $44 billion, had been completed, but acknowledged that Musk had taken control of the company and fired CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde.
A few hours later, Musk tweeted that "the bird is free," referring to the blue bird in the company's logo.
The layoffs came hours before a Friday deadline set by a Delaware judge to complete the deal, who threatened to file a lawsuit against the parties if they did not.
Although the layoffs were carried out at lightning speed, the personnel changes were not surprising; the Tesla CEO is expected to make many more similar moves at Twitter.
Musk clashed with Agrawal back in April, just before he decided to make an offer to buy the company, according to text messages in court documents.
At that time, Musk also criticized Gadde on Twitter, after which the legal director, who has worked at the company for 11 years, received racist and misogynistic messages from countless other Twitter users on the microblog, and many demanded that Musk fire the lawyer.
Musk's goal with the changes is to increase the number of Twitter users and the company's revenue.
In his first major move, Musk tried to calm Twitter's worried advertisers, saying that he bought the social medium to help humanity and that he didn't want Twitter to become "everyone's shame room."
Musk's message was apparently intended for advertisers, Twitter's main source of revenue, who are worried that if Musk weakens the moderation of content on Twitter in the name of free speech, it could open the door to "online mudslinging" and defamation, and many users could turn away from the medium.
"I bought Twitter because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital community forum where many different views can be discussed in a normal way, without resorting to violence," the company manager said in his message.
"Right now there is a great danger that social media will split into far-right and far-left opinion bubbles, which will then create more hatred and continue to divide our society"
- added Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter.
Source: MTI
Photo: Reuters
