Elon Musk formally owns Twitter • TechCrunch

It’s for actual this time. After months of authorized drama, unhealthy memes, and will-they-or-won’t-they-chaos to place your favourite rom-com to disgrace, Elon Musk has closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Various shops reported that Musk sealed the deal on Thursday evening, ousting a handful of high executives — CEO Parag Agrawal included — within the course of.

The highway to take Twitter non-public has been a rocky one. Musk first started flirting with the concept of proudly owning Twitter in early April, when he purchased 9.2% of the corporate for $3 billion. However he didn’t cease there. Lower than ten fateful days later, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO declared his intent to purchase Twitter for $44 billion. Twitter accepted, however Musk quickly obtained chilly toes and pulled out all of the stops to get out of the deal, touchdown the events within the Delaware Courtroom of Chancery. After enduring some embarrassing pre-trial discovery and going through a swiftly approaching date for his deposition, Musk introduced that he would comply with via in any case.

It’s not instantly clear why Musk backtracked, agreeing to purchase Twitter in any case. It’s attainable that Musk and his authorized group learn the tea leaves on their coming trial, which was initially set to start on October 17. Twitter sued Musk over the summer time to pressure the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to comply with via with the deal. Musk countersued Twitter in response, making unfounded claims that the corporate mislead him concerning the variety of automated accounts on the platform — a quantity that’s vital for advertisers and types who need human eyeballs on their paid advertisements.

As litigation between Musk and Twitter ramped up, Delaware Chancery Courtroom Decide Kathaleen McCormick made it clear that she wasn’t right here to humor Musk’s erratic shenanigans. In early October when Musk introduced, once more, that he would purchase Twitter if he may kill the upcoming trial, Decide McCormick solely agreed if Musk may shut the deal by Friday, October 28. If he had missed the deadline, we’d all be a recent Musk/Twitter trial date set for November.

On this, the primary day that Elon Musk formally owns Twitter, it’s additionally not clear what course Musk plans to take the platform. The chaotic and infrequently contradictory billionaire has previously promised to revive former President Trump’s account, rid the platform of all automated bots, which personally trouble him as one of the adopted customers on the platform (good luck), and touted Twitter’s potential as a impartial floor sq. and a counterbalance to his complaints about conventional media shops, which at occasions don’t report on his goings-on favorably.

In actuality, Twitter is a struggling but extremely outstanding platform, one the place heads of state and hardcore porn recurrently intermix and one which, after an extended section of stagnation, had lastly begun to introduce enhancements to its merchandise and insurance policies. It stays to be seen if Musk will flip again the clock on these experiments or see some via whereas claiming to reinvent the wheel (monetizing creators, actually an authentic thought!), but it surely’s troublesome to think about how he can accomplish any of his objectives whereas doubtlessly gutting the corporate’s workforce. Musk’s denial of experiences that he plans to chop 75% of Twitter’s employees is much from reassuring contemplating that shedding a 3rd or half of workers would nonetheless price 1000’s of staff their jobs.

Musk has additionally talked a giant recreation about turning again Twitter’s moderation and platform security efforts, however he appeared to immediately notice how this may make advertisers intensely skittish, publishing a letter reassuring them on Thursday. “Twitter clearly can not grow to be a free-for-all hellscape, the place something might be mentioned with no penalties!” he wrote, backtracking on his guarantees to make Twitter a free-for-all hellscape.

We don’t know what the longer term has in retailer for one of many world’s largest social networks however we do know that Musk has completed what as soon as was unthinkable, taking management of Twitter for $44 billion. However the conclusion to the monthslong saga is only the start of a brand new chapter of uncertainty at Twitter, elevating 1,000,000 questions on what the platform is definitely value, what it’s for and what, precisely, he plans to do with it.

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