After months of negotiations and dozens of twists worthy of the most epic sagas, Elon Musk has finally bought the social network Twitter for 44 billion dollars.
Elon Musk plans to take on the role of chief executive of Twitter Inc. after completing the acquisition of the social network on Thursday evening. The billionaire thus takes the head of the social media giant in addition to directing Tesla, SpaceX, and other companies. The takeover would have been made at its original offering price of $54.20 per share, at a total cost of approximately $44 billion.
Twitter’s stock price was $53.70 at market close. Meanwhile, Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin (DOGE), which he suggested could be used for some payments at Twitter, saw its price explode right after the official announcement. Indeed, it has recorded a 35% increase in its value since last Monday.
The takeover of Twitter was almost canceled
After months of negotiations, Musk had tried to pull out of the Twitter deal shortly after board members accepted his offer in April, and said in July he was canceling the contract because he had been misled by the company about the number of fake accounts. These claims were strongly denied by the company, but various experts had concluded that there were far more fake accounts than Twitter claimed.
Twitter, in turn, sought to prove that Musk was making up excuses to walk away just because he changed his mind. The company therefore sued Elon Musk to force him to respect the agreement. As the trial approached, the unpredictable billionaire finally capitulated and relaunched his takeover project, and was due to conclude today, October 28, 2022.
Some Twitter employees have already been fired
Now in charge, Musk is expected to quickly reorganize the company and downsize, and it looks like the first layoffs have already taken place. Indeed, several media reported that some company executives were already fired right after Musk arrived at Twitter. As a reminder, the billionaire returned yesterday to the company’s headquarters with a sink.
Immediately after finalizing the deal for the takeover, Elon Musk is said to have already fired at least four executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Sean Edgett, the company’s chief legal officer.
Elon Musk also fired Vijae Gadde, Head of Legal Department, Twitter Policy & Trust, was responsible for enforcing and creating the platform’s rules. She was the one who made the final decision to permanently ban Donald Trump’s account last year.
The dismissed employees will be compensated
According to the regulatory documents that frame the buyout, the terminated senior executives will receive a certain amount of severance pay and an automatic acceleration of their actions. CEO Agrawal is expected to receive the largest payout, around $38.7 millionlargely because all of his shares vested upon his dismissal.
Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer, is set to receive $25.4 million for his dismissal. Vijaya Gadde, the legal director, will walk away with $12.5 million. Finally, Sarah Personette, chief client officer, will receive $11.2 million.
The billionaire said a few days ago that he wanted remove 75% of Twitter staff, but then quickly backtracked on his statement. The firing of four senior executives is not reassuring for Twitter’s remaining employees. The billionaire nevertheless shared a photo of him sympathizing with the employees at the premises of Twitter.
Anyway, Musk tweeted on Thursday that he was buying Twitter “ because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital public square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy way “. We imagine that the social network will change profoundly in the coming monthsand we will of course keep you informed of all the news to come.
