Elon Musk has officially completed his $44 billion deal to take over Twitter, and he has already fired the social media company’s CEO, CFO, its head of legal policy, trust, and safety, and its general counsel.
As reported by Bloomberg, this means Twitter is now a private company that is wholly owned by Musk now that he has completed the deal that saw him pay $54.20 per share in a cash transaction that totaled roughly $44 billion.
As for the firings, first up is Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who took on the role back in November 2021 after co-founder Jack Dorsey resigned from the position. Agrawal has been with Twitter for over a decade, and he previously held the position of Chief Technology Officer.
The writing appeared to be on the wall for Agrawal as Musk had previously said that he doesn’t “have confidence in management” in an early filing about the deal. The two have also had some public feuds on Twitter itself, including one where Musk replied to a Tweet by Agrawal about “defending the company’s user metrics by tweeting back a poop emoji.”
Texts were also revealed during the deal process that showed more conflict between the two.
“You are free to tweet ‘is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter,” Agrawal wrote to Musk on April 9, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.”
Musk responded by saying “What did you get done this week,” and then he said, “i’m not joining the board this is a waste of time.” He also questioned his decision to go to Hawaii for a vacation during negotiations for the deal.
“Shouldn’t [Agrawal] be in the war room right now?!?” Musk’s friend and investor Jason Calacanis said.
“Does doing occasional zoom calls while drinking fruity cocktails at the Four Seasons count?” Musk responded.
While the move may be a bit of a shock, Agrawal will still walk away with 100% of his unvested equity awards, meaning he will make an estimated $42 million.
Vijae Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy, and trust, was in charge of enforcing and creating the rules for the platform, and it looks like some of those plans may be up for some revision.
Musk has previously said he was planning on making it a “less-restrictive platform for free speech,” in a move that he deems is “essential to a functioning democracy.” Some believe these words may mean some users who were blocked from the platform for dangerous and or offensive content, including Donald Trump, may be reinstated under Musk’s regime.
Chief financial officer Ned Segal is another one of the top executives who has officially been cut from the company, and he has been with Twitter since 2017. Lastly, general counsel Sean Edgett is also out, and he had been with the company since 2012. These four likely won’t be the last as Musk is reportedly planning on cutting 5,500 jobs, or 75% of Twitter’s workforce, in the future.
After making the initial $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter, Musk terminated the deal after, among other things, Musk claimed a breach of contract after he said Twitter wasn’t doing enough to reveal how many spam bots and fake accounts were on the platform. He was sued for this termination and was set to go to court if he didn’t complete the deal by October 28, but he made it so just under the wire.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
