After a long and confusing legal battle, the space billionaire and social media monolith finally made peace. Shortly after the acquisition was formalized, a series of interesting incidents ensued.
Here are some of the highlights.
Elon walks in the first day carrying a kitchen sink
Elon seems to be enjoying his new Twitter powers. Shortly after the acquisition, Musk changed his title to ‘Chief Twit’, and tweeted: “The bird is freed”, signaling a new era of freedom of speech.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
On his first day, Musk walked into the Twitter HQ carrying a sink, captioning the image with a joke, “let that sink in!”
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
Elon fires the CEO and CFO of Twitter
Immediately following his acquisition, Musk fired Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, taking on the role of CEO.
Some sources also say he fired Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust, and Sean Edgett, general counsel.
Former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and CLO Vijaya Gadde are reportedly walking away with $187 million of Musk’s money in compensation.
The fired executives will also receive a “Golden Parachute Compensation” as per the merger agreement approved by shareholders, which includes a year’s base pay – $1 million for Agrawal and $600,000 each for Segal and Gadde, plus a year of health insurance, worth about $73,000.
Agrawal, Segal and Gadde will also retain their shares, walking away with $8.4 million, $22 million, and $34.8 million respectively.
Turns out these high-profile layoffs were the beginning of a culling. Musk soon made his intentions clear of firing 75% of Twitter’s workforce, leaving the staff anxious about the takeover and what it may mean for them.
Elon says he plans on letting go 75% of the workforce, then takes it back
In one of his early Twitter threads, Musk said he’s “meeting a lot of cool people at Twitter today”, then added that some of these “cool people” may be about to lose their jobs.
He soon took that back, however. Bloomberg reports that he denied the previously reported number in an address to employees at the company’s San Francisco office last Wednesday.
Binance, the fourth biggest backer of the takeover, will help Elon fight Twitter bots
Earlier this week, Binance wired a $500 million investment to back Musk’s Twitter takeover, becoming the fourth largest contributor to the acquisition.
For its part, Binance says it plans to help Musk fight Twitter bots, although it is likely that its contribution will mostly be used to groom the social media giant to become even more of a web3-friendly platform, as Musk shared last June that he plans to introduce crypto payments to Twitter.
Speaking at the first virtual all-hands meeting for Twitter, he explained: “Money is fundamentally digital at this point and has been for a while. It would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so it’s easy to send money back and forth.”
Ellison Revocable Trust remains the biggest contributor with its $1 billion investment.
Elon takes Twitter private
On Friday, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading of Twitter’s stock as Musk took the company private. Twitter, which closed Thursday at $53.70 per share, will be completely delisted on November 8th.
Marking a 0.66% increase per share, the purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price of $39.31 on April 1, 2022 — the last trading day before Musk disclosed his 9.2% stake.
The move gives Musk significantly more power, as privately-held companies don’t need to deal with the pesky intrusion of a board of directors. However, this power comes at a steep price, as private companies are closely taxed and face harder regulatory decisions.
In 2018, Musk paid a $40 million SEC fine for ‘joking’ about taking Tesla private on Twitter. The fine was distributed equally between his person and his company, as each paid $20 million for fraud charges, as the court “held that he recklessly made the statements with knowledge as to their falsity.”
This time, however, Musk is serious, and sharing his plans of taking the company public again in three to five years.
The use of the N-word increases by over 500% since the takeover
Musk, a self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutist’, told advertisers that Twitter cannot become ‘a free-for-all hellscape.’
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
He has another thing coming though, as users took to Twitter to test the limits of his free speech by tweeting all sorts of problematic, and often quite hateful, statements targeting a number of ethnic and minority groups, an action that would have otherwise gotten its user put in Twitter jail before Musk became CEO.
Some of them even tagged Elon, hoping to trigger a response.
A social media research group also told The Washington Post that ever since the takeover, the use of the n-word increased by nearly 500%.
Musk was quick to respond, revealing his imminent plans for instating a content moderation team with ‘diverse viewpoints.’
Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.
No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
This is a developing story.
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