Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk. Shortly before the deadline set by a court expires, the Tesla boss takes over the platform. With the first layoffs, he doesn't hesitate.
According to media reports, the era of Elon Musk on Twitter began with layoffs in the executive floor. On Thursday, for example, the previous company boss Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal were fired, the broadcaster CNBC and the Wall Street Journal reported, among others. The top manager responsible for the fight against hate speech and false information, Vijaya Gadde, was among the dismissed, it said. The billionaire tweeted early in the morning: "The bird is freed." Twitter's logo is a blue bird - and "twitter" means to tweet in German.
Musk always justified the purchase with the desire to strengthen freedom of speech. Musk also said he would let ex-President Donald Trump, who had been banned after praising his violent supporters, back on the platform.
Musk had repeatedly criticized Agrawal and the Twitter leadership in recent months. At least one of the managers was escorted out of the company's headquarters, wrote the "New York Times", citing informed people. According to financial service Bloomberg, it was chief counsel Sean Edgett. An official announcement about the completion of the approximately 44 billion dollar takeover was still pending.
According to the "New York Times", it was initially unclear whether the deal had already been completed at the time of the layoffs. According to the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, the tech billionaire has owned Twitter since Thursday. The transaction must be completed by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (11:00 p.m. CEST) on Friday, otherwise the deal will still end up in court.
A judge gave Musk and Twitter this deadline to finally settle the takeover after months of back and forth. The stock was set to sit on hold from trading, according to an announcement Friday morning US Eastern Time -- an indication of an upcoming announcement. Musk had engineered the takeover himself, but then tried to get out of the deal, citing allegedly false information about the number of fake accounts on Twitter.
Twitter took him to court - and shortly before the trial in the state of Delaware, Musk agreed to buy Twitter at the originally agreed price of $54.20 per share. The fact that he made the cessation of the court case a condition caused uncertainty until the end.
It has been clear for days that Musk has come to terms with his new role as Twitter owner. He showed up at the company's headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday and described himself as "Chief Twit" on his Twitter profile. According to US media, he wants to introduce himself to the employees there on a larger scale on Friday.
This should not be an easy performance for him after reports of large job cuts had caused uncertainty among the employees. He is said to have rejected information that he wanted to throw out three quarters of the employees at headquarters this week.
Musk tried on Thursday to reassure advertisers and users who feared that the sound of the online service would be brutalized under him. Musk wrote in an open letter to advertisers that Twitter should not become a "place of horror" where everything can be said without consequences. He aroused such concerns himself with criticism that freedom of expression was being restricted too severely on Twitter. The platform must be "warm and welcoming to everyone," Musk wrote. Musk wrote that he didn't buy Twitter because it would be easy or to make more money. "I did it to help humanity I love," he proclaimed. And he approaches the task with humility - and in the knowledge that, despite all his efforts, he can fail.
