The Elon Musk era at Twitter has finally begun, as the long-anticipated negotiation for Twitter’s buyout came to an end as Musk closed a $44 billion takeover of the company late Thursday night. The ink on the contract was barely dried when Musk made his first blow by firing several top execs, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and the platform’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde.
The moves were not unexpected, given Musk’s previous criticisms of Twitter’s executive team calling out employees by name, including Agrawal and Gadde. Elon Musk’s contract determinations occurred after rumours and news outlets anticipated that Twitter’s CEO Agrawal planned to leave in any way once the deal was finalized.
Musk tweeted that “the bird is freed” on Twitter to either suggest that the deal of his takeover was finally done by using his newly bought platform to announce his initiation, whereas others see this as a statement of pulling out the weeds of managers who have been caging Twitter’s performance.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
Elon Musk wasted no time and didn’t even give Agrawal the satisfaction to exit on his own terms and will most likely within the next upcoming weeks make additional cuts to employees he believes mismanages the company to the vision he wishes to achieve.
Recent reports suggest that Musk is aiming to cull up to 75% of Twitter’s current staff to cut costs and re-focus the app. Though Musk claims that this number never came from him and that he has no real number in mind for staff cuts. But cuts there will be, while the loss of experienced, skilled managers and leaders from the company’s ranks will also have significant impacts on how it operates and evolves moving forward.
The rough start of Elon Musk’s new Twitter era:
To announce his first day as owner of Twitter, Mush arrived at Twitter’s headquarters with a sink in his hands. Yep, you read that right! A literal bathroom, ceramic sink with an announcement that sent social media into a frenzy “Let that sink in…”
Sources close to the matter have reported that after his iconic initiation and rocky start, Elon Musk plans to become the CEO of Twitter, on top of helming Tesla and SpaceX, but may cede the CEO role in the long term. For now, Twitter representatives declined to comment as the company is still adjusting to major management changes.
It’s still too early to tell how Musk will change the app. Musk has provided vague details of his various plans, which include increasing subscriptions, providing alternative algorithms for a more customized experience, and improving the app’s data targeting and matching for ads and other content. Twitter’s never been overly good at uncovering relevant content, and maybe, with his own team coming in, Musk may have a whole new way of honing in on relevant data signals and maximizing the experience.
Evidently, he’s confident that he has the people to do it because he’s already cut a huge chunk of experience out of the app.
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