The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has completed this Thursday the purchase of the social network Twitter for a value of 44,000 million dollars (a similar figure in euros) and has carried out the dismissal of its main executives.
Thus, the company’s shareholders will receive 54.20 dollars for each share and Twitter will become the property of the tycoon, who has already announced his plans to change the content moderation policies of the social network betting on «greater freedom of expression», as reported by CNN.
Musk has repeatedly expressed his disagreement with the social network’s practice of permanently banning users who repeatedly violate its policies, which raises the possibility that users, such as former U.S. President Donald Trump, may return to the platform.
Likewise, the world’s richest person assured during an interview at a TED2022 talk that the purchase of Twitter does not see it as «a way to make money.» «My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important for the future of civilization,» he said.
The closing of the purchase puts an end to months of back-and-forth by the social network and the billionaire over the acquisition of the company, as despite agreeing to an initial offer, Musk announced months later that he was pulling out of the acquisition claiming that Twitter executives had not agreed to his requests.
Specifically, the Tesla CEO asked Twitter for the exact number of fake accounts on the platform, as well as how the company was auditing those accounts and removing them.
For this reason, and after demonstrating for months his exasperation with the way in which the social network was managed, the tycoon has dismissed the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, as well as the CFO, Ned Segal and the head of policy Vijaya Gadde, CNN has reported.
The decision comes just a day after Musk announced to employees that he was backing out of firing 75 percent of the workforce, as he had originally planned.
All in all, the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter could affect the operation of the platform, which encompasses much of the political and media system around the world.
Among other things, Twitter could stop moderating some of its content, which could undo years of work by the company to address misinformation and harassment and create «healthier» conversations on the platform.
