In April 2022, Elon Musk announced that at 9%, he was now the largest shareholder in the company and he would like to acquire the company at $44billion.
The Twitter Board approved the acquisition and then, the matter went to court because Musk had concerns about the number of spam bots on Twitter.
On Thursday, October 27th, Elon Musk finally completed the transaction and entered Twitter as its owner.
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
One day earlier, he changed his title to “Chief Twit”.
What was the first thing he did?
Any leader, right after appointment, starts by changing the next line. A leader would like a next line that is loyal to them, and usually, the top management of a company is changed after a takeover.
Elon also started by firing some key Twitter executives:
- Parag Agarwal, CEO
- Vijaya Gadde, Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (she was instrumental in getting Trump’s account banned on Twitter)
- Ned Segal, CFO
- Sean Edgett, General Counsel
The letter to advertisers
This letter by Elon Musk to advertisers on Twitter is a must read.
What happens now?
There will, very likely, be more exits at Twitter. Especially at senior levels.
Definitely, there will be changes to editorial policy, as indicated in his open letter above.
Since Musk has been vocal about spam and bots (and spambots), it is reasonable to expect some action on those too.
Other than that, the strategy and execution of the new Twitter remains to be seen and nothing can be predicted.
On a lighter note…
On a lighter note, there is an automated Twitter account called @ElonJet that publicly publishes information of Elon Musk’s private plane. The account is run by a teenager called Jack Sweeney. Even he has created a poll to wonder whether the accounts will be banned on Twitter. At this time, the opinion is divided:
What do you think?