Elon Musk completes the acquisition of Twitter and fires its top executives

() — Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, a source familiar with the deal told on Thursday.

Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Closing the deal removes a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Twitter’s business, employees and shareholders for much of the year. After initially agreeing to buy the company in April, Musk spent months trying to get out of the deal, first citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform and then allegations raised by a company whistleblower.

But the acquisition of Musk and the immediate firings of some of his top executives now raise a series of new questions for the future of the platform and the many corners of society affected by it.

Musk has said he plans to rethink Twitter’s content moderation policies to usher in a more maximalist approach to “free speech.” The billionaire has also said he disagrees with Twitter’s practice of permanent bans for those who repeatedly violate its rules, raising the possibility that a number of previously banned users could resurface on the platform.

Perhaps more immediately, many will be watching to see how soon Musk could allow former President Donald Trump to return to the platform, as he has previously said he would.

By taking those steps, Musk could single-handedly change the political and media ecosystem, reshape public discourse online, and disrupt the nascent sphere of conservative-leaning social media properties that sprung up largely in response to complaints. about bans and restrictions on Twitter and other services.

Musk, a prominent and controversial Twitter user, became involved with the company earlier this year when he amassed a more than 9% stake in its stock. After announcing that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder, Musk accepted and later withdrew from a bid to join the company’s board.

Musk then offered to buy Twitter outright at a significant premium, threatened a hostile takeover, and signed a “seller-friendly” deal to buy the company that involved forgoing due diligence. Within weeks, Musk began raising concerns about the prevalence of fake and spam accounts on Twitter and eventually tried to back out of the deal. However, Twitter sued him to honor the acquisition deal, and as the contentious legal battle neared trial, Musk said he would go through with the deal on its original terms after all.

Earlier this week, Musk visited Twitter headquarters in San Francisco to meet with employees. He also posted an open letter to Twitter advertisers, saying he doesn’t want the platform to become a “rogue hell where you can say anything without consequences.”