According to sources familiar with the transaction, Twitter and Musk officially closed on the billionaire’s deal to purchase the company for $54.20 per share, or approximately $44 billion, on Thursday night, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and others.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year, threatened to back out of the deal, then changed his mind again this month and said he would see the deal through.
According to sources, Musk fired CFO Ned Segal and CEO Parag Agrawal the same evening. Vijaya Gadde, the chief legal officer, was also let go. According to sources, Musk visited Twitter’s San Francisco office this week, where he met with employees and had casual conversations with them in the café.
On Friday, there will most likely be an all-hands meeting. Musk tweeted a video of himself carrying a sink as he arrived at Twitter’s headquarters earlier this week, saying, “Entering Twitter HQ-Let that sink in!”
Mr. Musk’s business empire, which includes Tesla Inc., the world’s most valuable car company, and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, will be expanded by the deal, which will return Twitter to private ownership.
Mr. Musk, who owns the most shares of Twitter by himself, said that the purchase would be paid for mostly with cash and some money from other investors, as well as $13 billion in debt.
Mr. Musk appeared to be on the verge of acquiring the social media site before the Friday 5 p.m. deadline. According to The Wall Street Journal, banks have begun to fund the transaction. Mr. Musk also changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit,” walked through the social media platform’s San Francisco offices, and tweeted a message to advertisers.
According to University of Michigan corporate law professor Erik Gordon, following the new agreement, Twitter will ask the Delaware Court of Chancery to dismiss its lawsuit against Musk over the $44 billion purchase.
The judge overseeing Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk in Delaware Chancery Court has given them until Friday, October 28 to settle or face a five-day trial next month. Musk went to the negotiating table after being told to do things on Twitter and having his private text messages made public.
Mr. Musk’s acquisition raises questions about how he will modify the platform’s revenue model and content policing. Twitter, like most other social media sites, depends mostly on digital advertising and has been having trouble lately because of the economy.
As a result of the acquisition, it will be saddled with billions of dollars in debt, raising costs for a company that has lost money in eight of its last ten fiscal years.
According to CNBC, Musk sent a message on Thursday.
A free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences. The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said in the message. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far-right wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.
