Twitter Inc. is now owned by Elon Musk, with multiple media outlets reporting Thursday night that the long-anticipated sale had officially closed.
The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others reported, based on unnamed sources, that the top executives of Twitter (TWTR) were fired and escorted from the building, including chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust and safety.
Musk himself is expected to assume the role of interim CEO, though in the longer term may appoint someone else, Bloomberg reported early Friday, citing unnamed sources. Twitter did not respond to a request by the publication for comment.
The acquisition ends months of legal wrangling after Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and SpaceX and a frequent Twitter user, offered to buy Twitter in April.
After reaching an agreement with Twitter’s board to buy the social media company for $44 billion, Musk tried to back out of the deal and Twitter sued him. He faced a Friday deadline to complete the deal or face trial.
In a tweet late Thursday night, Musk said only: “the bird is freed.”
Thursday morning, Musk signaled a deal was imminent when he tweeted a statement aimed at assuring advertisers, some of whom might be concerned about his plans for content moderation. Musk has said one of his motivations for buying the platform is related to complaints about censorship, mostly from people who have been banned because they have violated Twitter’s terms of service.
“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk said in his statement to advertisers Thursday.
Twitter did not immediately return a request for comment late Thursday.
The Bloomberg report added that Musk also plans to end lifetime bans for users, meaning former President Donald Trump could return to Twitter, though it’s unclear how soon that could happen, the source said.
Twitter shares have rallied 26% over the past month, closing Thursday at $53.70, close to the $54.20 share price Musk agreed to pay in April.
Levi Sumagaysay
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