Twitter Affords to Purchase Again Bonds as Musk Consolidates Energy

(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. and Elon Musk took additional actions on Monday to consolidate management of the corporate below its new proprietor, together with launching a suggestion to purchase again all the excellent bonds and dismissing the board.

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Musk, 51, accomplished his buy of Twitter final week for $44 billion and instantly began molding the corporate to his liking. One of many first steps Musk took was to fireplace 4 of probably the most senior executives of the corporate, together with Parag Agrawal, the chief govt officer. Calling himself Chief Twit, Musk plans to successfully run the corporate himself within the instant time period, folks aware of his plans have mentioned.

On Monday, Musk grew to become the only director of the social media firm after the elimination of all 9 different board members, in accordance with the phrases of the merger settlement, in line with a securities submitting. It wasn’t clear who Musk would nominate to fill the board. On the different firms he runs, together with Tesla Inc., the boards are filled with Musk loyalists. His brother Kimbal Musk, is a board member at Tesla, for instance.

In accordance with the submitting, Twitter will buy excellent 3.875% senior notes due 2027 and 5% senior notes due 2030 at a suggestion value of 101% of principal plus accrued and unpaid curiosity, in line with a submitting Monday. The bond agreements required Twitter to supply to purchase again its debt within the occasion of a change answerable for the corporate. Musk has additionally requested a decide to dismiss a lawsuit over his try to tug out of the acquisition now that the deal has closed.

Musk’s first few days on the job have been stuffed with rumor and hypothesis, together with about how he’ll deal with content material moderation on Twitter and what number of jobs he’ll minimize in an effort to manage prices. Considerations over large layoffs swirled within the run-up to Musk’s take-private transaction, when potential traders had been instructed that he’d remove 75% of the workforce. Musk later denied that the cuts could be that deep, although he hasn’t elaborated on the plans. In current weeks, Musk has hinted at his staffing priorities, saying he needs to concentrate on the core product.

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Simply three days in to his new job, the billionaire’s views on content material moderation had been additionally being examined after he posted and deleted a tweet spreading a baseless anti-LGBTQ conspiracy idea in regards to the current assault on the husband of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The episode underscored the pressures that Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” now faces in operating the favored social media web site — notably in find out how to place limits on misinformation and hate speech on its service. Musk has pledged to advertisers that Twitter received’t develop into a “free-for-all hellscape” below his management however on the identical time pronounced that unfettered speech ought to be the norm on the location.

–With help from Kurt Wagner and Davey Alba.

(Updates with background on the transaction all through)

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