Elon Musk has assumed control of Twitter Inc. with harsh efficiency, sacking top executives without delay, but with little explanation of how he plans to carry out the aspirational goals he has set forth for the major social media platform.
He tweeted “The bird is freed” after completing his $44 billion acquisition on Thursday, making obvious reference to his wish to see Twitter loosen its restrictions on what can be posted.
However, the self-described free speech advocate and CEO of Tesla Inc. has declared his desire to stop the platform from turning into an echo chamber for division and hate.
Other objectives include attempting to “defeat” Twitter spam bots and making the algorithms used to choose what information is shown to users of the service open to the general public.
Musk, however, has not provided specifics on how he intends to do all of this or who would lead the company. He has said that he intends to make job cuts, which has Twitter’s 7,500 employees worried about the future.
On Thursday, he said that he bought Twitter “to try to help humanity, whom I love,” rather than to increase his monetary gain.
The sources added that Agrawal and Segal were escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco offices where they were present when the agreement was closed.
According to Bloomberg, which cited a source familiar with the case, Musk, who also owns the rocket company SpaceX, intends to end permanent user bans and take over as CEO of Twitter when the transaction is completed.
Requests for response from Twitter, Musk, and the executives were not immediately fulfilled.
Before closing the deal, Musk walked into Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday with a big grin and a porcelain sink, subsequently tweeting “let that sink in.” He changed his Twitter profile description to “Chief Twit.”
Additionally, he made an effort to assuage staff worries about impending mass layoffs and reassured advertisers that his prior criticism of Twitter’s content control guidelines would not diminish the platform’s appeal.
“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk said in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.
