Umamah Bakharia | ub@radioislam.co.za

2 min read
28 October 2022 | 09:15 am CAT

Elon Musk officially took control of social media company Twitter after confirming the $44bn deal to buy the company.

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.
Photo credit: ABC News

In one of his first decisions as Twitter’s new owner, Musk fired three top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ned Segal and head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde.

The Washington Post also added that Twitter’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, was fired.

However, Musk and Twitter have yet to confirm the firings.

Following the reports of the firings, Musk tweeted, “the bird is freed”, which referred to the Twitters bird logo.

The purchase of the social media company comes after a six-month-long battle between the billionaire and Twitter, where Twitter first resisted selling the company. It later agreed. However, Twitter later sued Musk after he indicated that he would be turning away from the deal, citing concerns over spam accounts and whistleblower claims over a lack of cybersecurity.

that saw Twitter initially resist Musk’s purchase offer and then sue the billionaire after he signalled he would nix the deal over concerns about spam accounts and whistleblower claims about lax cybersecurity practices.

Now that the deal is being finalised, critics are wary that Musk could allow the platform to object to censorship and allow for hate speech and misinformation.

In May, Musk said he would reactivate former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which was removed for allegedly inciting violence in the wake of the riots at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Recently, Musk disagreed with Twitter’s reliance on advertising.