Elon Musk
Elon Musk. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Various news outlets, including Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, reported late Thursday that the social networking platform Twitter has a new owner, and it is one of the world's richest men, Elon Musk.

Citing sources whose identities were not revealed as they were not authorized to speak, the New York Times said Musk has started firing several top executives at Twitter.

Twitter's chief executive, Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, the top legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and the general counsel Sean Edgett were among the executives who were axed.

Musk's takeover of Twitter follows months of legal controversies and public anger, according to USA Today.

The deal was slated to close by Friday, allowing the Tesla billionaire to take control of one of the world's most influential social networking sites.

USA Today added that Musk still needed to name a new chief executive. However, on Wednesday, he changed his Twitter bio to "Chief Twit." He tweeted a video before walking into Twitter's San Francisco headquarters in the U.S.A., carrying a porcelain sink, with the caption, "Let that sink in."

Once the deal is completed, Twitter will once again be a private company for the first time in nine years since it went public under the symbol TWTR on the New York Stock Exchange.

USA Today also mentioned that Twitter's former management planned to cut payroll by about $800 million and is set to make big cuts to its infrastructure and data centers by the end of 2023.

Aside from this, reports circulated that more severe measures will happen under Musk, including laying off 75% of Twitter's employees or around 7,500 staff.

The report added that in an exchange message with Jason Calacanis, a fellow entrepreneur, he recommended to Musk to cut more than 3,000 Twitter employees.

© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.