- Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal & finance chief Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco HQ.
- Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, has also been let go.
- Musk needed to finalize his $44 billion takeover of Twitter by Friday.
According to insiders, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal & finance chief Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters. The Washington Post also reported that Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust, and safety, had been let go.
In order to avoid a legal battle with Twitter, Elon Musk needed to finalize his $44 billion takeover of the firm by Friday.
Musk proposed buying out Twitter in April, and the social media platform agreed. The volume of spam and fraudulent accounts on the service was not fully disclosed, Musk claimed, sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the arrangement.
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Twitter has launched a lawsuit against Musk, claiming he “refuses to honour his promises to Twitter and its stockholders because the arrangement he made no longer serves his own interests.” This comes after Musk announced he would be quitting the firm.
In the months that followed, Twitter and Musk exchanged legal jabs before heading to Delaware’s Court of Chancery to settle the question of whether or not the firm would ultimately be transferred to Musk, the CEO of Tesla.
In early October, Musk reversed course and claimed he still intended to acquire Twitter at the original price of $54.20 per share, provided the microblogging service discontinued its litigation. Concerned that Musk’s “offering is an invitation to additional mischief and delay,” Twitter’s legal team dismissed the Tesla CEO’s offer.
Read More: Twitter requires age verification for restricted content
In the end, a judge in Delaware Chancery Court gave Musk until October 28 to finalise the Twitter purchase or go to trial.
Musk sought to reassure advertisers on Thursday with a post he authored promising social messaging platforms wouldn’t become “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
Musk added in the message, “I acquired Twitter because it is crucial to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of opinions can be argued in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”
There is a significant risk that social media may further polarise our society by creating echo chambers for people on the extreme right and far left.
Earlier this week, Musk brought a sink with him to Twitter HQ and tweeted, “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”
