Elon Musk is now in charge of Twitter and has ousted its top three executives. Sources early on Friday morning would not say if all the paperwork for the deal, originally valued at 44 billion dollars (£38 billion), had been signed or if it had been closed.
However, they said the South Africa-born entrepreneur was in charge of the firm and had dismissed chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and general counsel Vijaya Gadde. The billionaire appeared to confirm media reports of his takeover, tweeting shortly before 5am (UK time) on Friday: “the bird is freed”.
His chief criticism of the social media platform has been its policing of “free speech”. Mr Musk is expected to speak to Twitter employees directly on Friday if the deal is finalised, according to an internal memo cited in several media outlets.
