Elon Musk Purchases Twitter and Fires Top Executives

Musk stated that the platform should be “warm, welcoming to all”.

He suggested that Twitter could allow people to “choose their desired experience according to their preferences, just like you can choose to watch movies or play video games for all ages and ages.

Two weeks before the Delaware trial was scheduled to start over the failed deal, Mr. Musk made the decision to proceed with the Twitter takeover. The judge who presided over the legal dispute granted Mr. Musk’s request for more time to complete his takeover. The judge gave Mr. Musk until October 28th to accept his offer or stated that she would schedule a November trial.

In April, Mr. Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share. This was a higher price than the company was worth at that time. Twitter has been under pressure from Mr. Musk to cancel the deal. This was due to a whistleblower complaint in which Twitter’s former head for security claimed that the company had security and privacy issues. There have also been unsuccessful negotiations to get a lower price with Musk.

Twitter shares were suspended by the New York Stock Exchange, effective Friday. The stock closed at $53.70 on Thursday.

The takeover by Mr. Musk raises many questions about the future of the platform, including how he may revamp its business model as well as how he might implement the changes he proposed to the way it policies contents.

Twitter, like other social media companies, heavily depends on digital advertising. However, it has been facing headwinds in recent weeks due to economic uncertainty. The deal will also leave it with billions of dollars in debt. This will increase costs for a company that has suffered losses in eight of the past ten fiscal years.

It was a business drama that had little precedent. In April, Mr. Musk bought Twitter. He signed a merger agreement with Twitter, but he claimed that the company misrepresented the presence of spam and fake accounts on its platform. This was denied by Twitter.

In July, he tried to cancel the deal. Twitter sued him to enforce the original merger agreement. Mr. Musk retorted.

Many Twitter employees were worried about Mr. Musk’s potential takeover of Twitter.

Musk abruptly ended his legal battle against Twitter in October. There was no explanation. Musk tweeted his reversal saying that “buying Twitter is an accelerant for creating X,the everything app.” He had previously suggested that he could create a social media platform called X.com if he did not buy Twitter.

Eric Talley, a Columbia University law professor, stated that many factors were mounting up against Musk. These included rulings by the court denial of some of his discovery requests. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick was in charge of the Delaware case and had called some of Musk’s data requests “absurdly wide”.

Mr. Talley stated that he spent many months trying to find a way out of the deal. “All those windows started to close, and some of them shut completely.”

The specific plans of Mr. Musk for the company are not yet clear. The Journal reported that he could bring Twitter back to public ownership within a few years.

The billionaire entrepreneur took Twitter private so that he can take greater risks to kick-start his company. Youssef, the lead internet analyst at Truist Securities, said that “it’s going to bumpy.” “He can take the whole thing away for a few years and really re-engineer it,” Mr. Squali stated.

Musk suggested that he would like to shift Twitter from its advertising-heavy business model towards other revenue streams, such as subscriptions. In the second quarter, advertising accounted for over 90% of Twitter’s total revenue.
Although he said that he would allow former President Donald Trump to be back on the platform.  Twitter removed Mr. Trump from the platform following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, citing the possibility of incitement to violence.

“Twitter is not going to be made into a right-wing nuthouse. Musk stated that he wanted to be as inclusive as possible in a message that was part of a trove of messages released during the legal battle.