Twitter deal: Elon Musk had been speaking openly against spam accounts.
Elon Musk has finally taken over Twitter after a court battle. He dismissed CEO Parag Agrawal with whom he had a public altercation following his refusal to go through with the $44 billion deal. CFO Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde were also shown the door.
Musk was sued by Twitter leadership after he refused to honor the deal whose offer he made in public, citing non-transparence on the number of bot accounts. Twitter on the other hand accused him of having what it called buyer's remorse. Earlier this month, fearing an adverse court ruling, Musk agreed to buy Twitter at the mutually agreed-upon original price.
Here's how will musk pay for the Twitter deal.
According to unconfirmed reports, Musk will invest his personal wealth of 27 billion dollars. The rest of the money will be invested by other people and institutions. Over the last few months, Musk has sold his Tesla shares worth 15.5 billion dollars.
Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, etc have paid 13 billion dollars as debt for the Twitter buyout.
According to reports, Qatar Investment Authority has also agreed to buy Twitter shares.
Also read: What was Parag Agrawal's salary at Twitter? All you need to know about his life in India, wife, children
What next for Musk?
Musk had been speaking openly against spam accounts. He initially declined the deal over bot accounts. It is expected that he would work to lower the number of fake accounts on Twitter. This might result in a reduction in people's followers.
Another aspect of Twitter he is likely to work on is free speech. He had openly criticized Twitter's blocking of Donald Trump's account, terming it foolish. Twitter had blocked him over his alleged false remarks regarding the election in the United States.
Twitter has become a platform of choice for those making hate speeches. It is expected he might work on some mechanism to stem such tendencies.
The company has already been in a confrontation with the Indian government over non-compliance.
Musk had invoked the Indian government in his response to Twitter's lawsuit against not going through with the deal earlier this year. Listing the reasons for backing out from the much-hyped deal, Musk had submitted in the court that the company didn't disclose it filed "risky" litigation against the government of Twitter's third-largest market.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday tweeted that he hoped Twitter will now act against hate speech, fact-check more robustly, and will no "longer stifle the opposition’s voice in India due to government pressure".
Musk, meanwhile, denied reports in a staff meeting that he would sack 75 percent of Twitter employees. He talked about taking the company forward together.
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