The Bird Is Free: Why Elon Musk Fired Twitter's Top Executives Soon After Company's Takeover

Elon Musk has taken over as the new owner of Twitter, dismissing top employees he had accused of deceiving him and offering little explanation of how he will carry out the ambitious plans he has made for the significant social media company.

His initial response was a tweet. " The bird is free," he said after sealing the deal.

the bird is freed

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

According to a New York Times report that cited sources with knowledge of the situation, Musk "has decided to clean house at Twitter with the firings of at least four top executives."

Former CEO Parag Agrawal is among the Twitter executives that were fired. Following the resignation of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in November, Parag Agrawal was appointed CEO of the company. Agrawal has been employed by Twitter for about ten years and held the position of the chief technical officer before becoming CEO.

Elon Musk vs. Parag Agrawal

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has acquired control of the social networking platform after a protracted legal battle and months of enmity between Musk and Twitter leadership. There was a lot of animosity between Elon Musk and Parag Agrawal, and little of it was kept from the public eye as the litigation made their scathing messaging exchanges public.

In an early filing regarding the deal, Musk stated, "I don't have confidence in management. "You are free to tweet 'is Twitter dying' or anything else related to Twitter," noted Musk, "but it's my obligation to let you know that it's not assisting me in improving Twitter in the current context."

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What did you accomplish this week? Elon Musk publicly attacked Parag and expressed ambivalence about the agreement by writing, "I'm not joining the board this is a waste of time."

Elon's story of the Twitter takeover?

A remarkable saga with many twists and turns that raised questions about Musk's ability to execute the deal culminated in the 44 billion dollar acquisition. It all started on April 4, when Musk revealed that he was the San Francisco company's top stakeholder with a 9.2% stake.

The richest man in the world then agreed to join Twitter's board, but changed his mind at the last minute and proposed to buy the firm instead for 54.20 dollars per share. Twitter wasn't sure whether to take this as another of Musk's references to marijuana or not.

Musk's offer was genuine, and the two parties eventually came to an agreement on his estimated amount over the course of just one weekend later in April.

This occurred without Musk performing any due diligence on the company's proprietary information, as is normal in an acquisition.

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Following those weeks, Musk had second thoughts. He expressed public displeasure about Twitter's estimate of less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users, saying he thought the number of spam accounts was substantially higher. Then, according to his attorneys, Twitter ignored his demands for information on the matter.

Due to the growing tension, Musk informed Twitter on July 8 that he was ending their business relationship and that Twitter had misled him over the bots and had not cooperated with him. Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk in Delaware, where the business is incorporated, four days later to compel him to finalize the transaction.

Making of the ¡®Chief Twit¡¯

Shares of social media businesses and the overall stock market had already fallen at that point due to concerns that the Federal Reserve's attempts to combat inflation by raising interest rates may cause the U.S. economy to enter a recession. Twitter said that Musk was suffering from buyer's remorse and wanted to back out of the agreement because he believed he overpaid.

According to reports, the majority of legal experts felt that Twitter had the best arguments and would probably win the case. Even after Twitter's former security chief Peiter Zatko came forth as a whistleblower in August and said that the firm failed to disclose flaws in its security and data privacy, their opinion did not change.

Musk made another U-turn on October 4 and offered to complete the agreement as promised, just before he was scheduled to be questioned by Twitter's attorneys prior to the start of their trial later that same month. He was given until October 28 by the Delaware judge to complete the deal and avert the trial.

Twitter

Elon Musk visited the Twitter offices the day before the deal closed and modified his bio to read "Chief Twit." Then he said in a letter to Twitter advertisers that he had bought Twitter because society's future required a "shared digital town square."

"There is currently a significant risk that far-right and far-left echo chambers on social media will spread more hate and split our society."

"Because it would be simple, I chose not to do it. I didn't do it to increase my earnings. I did it in an effort to support humanity, whom I adore" Musk wrote.

Parag's deal?

There won't be any empty bags for Parag Agrawal. According to a filing, the CEO will fully vest all of his unvested equity awards as part of the agreement. According to research firm Equilar's estimate, he will earn almost $42 million, Reuters reported.

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