Elon Musk news - live: Twitter takeover under way as billionaire fires top executives, report says

The Elon Musk era at Twitter seems to have officially begun.

Top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal chief Vijaya Gadde have all reportedly been fired.

This after the billionaire bizarrely arrived on Wednesday at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink ahead of closing his $44bn deal to purchase the micro-blogging site.

“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” the Tesla CEO tweeted.

Mr Musk changed his Twitter profile to refer to himself as “Chief Twit” and his location as Twitter headquarters.

A court had given him until Friday to close his April agreement to acquire the company after he earlier tried to back out of the deal.

Mr Musk, the world's richest person, agreed to buy the company for $54.20 a share in April, but by July had indicated that he had changed his mind, citing bot and spam issues.

He renewed his attempt to acquire the company earlier this month.

Mr Musk reportedly told Twitter employees during his visit that he does not plan to cut 75 per cent of the staff after acquiring the company.

Key Points

• Elon Musk begins takeover of Twitter as top executives including Parag Agrawal fired, report says

• Elon Musk walks into Twitter HQ with a sink

• Musk tells Twitter employees he will not cut 75 per cent of jobs

Elon Musk has bought Twitter. Now what?

04:29 , Graeme Massie

Elon Musk has promised to make big changes to Twitter as part of his goal of making it an ‘everything app’ with one billion users. Tech experts say he has his work cut out, Bevan Hurley reports.

Elon Musk has bought Twitter. Now what?

Will Elon Musk put Donald Trump back on Twitter?

04:03 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Mr Musk messaged one or more unknown individuals about ”letting right wingers back on Twitter” including, it seems, former president Donald Trump who was banned from the platform in January 2021 because of the “risk of further incitement of violence” after the Capitol Hill riots.

Several messages between Elon Musk and key figures at Twitter – including founder Jack Dorsey, board chair Bret Taylor and current head Parag Agrawal – were released as a part of the ongoing documentation ahead of Elon Musk’s trial against Twitter.

“It will be a delicate game of letting right wingers back on Twitter and how to navigate that (especially the boss himself, if you’re up for that)”, the message reads,

“I would also lay out the standards early but have someone who has a savvy cultural/political view to be the VP of actual enforcement. A Blake Masters type.”

Joe Rogan told Elon Musk to ‘liberate Twitter’, private texts show

Will Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

03:31 , Graeme Massie

The one-term president was exiled from Facebook and Twitter after January 6 riot and started his own platform Truth Social.

John Bowden has the story.

Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

Elon Musk reveals what he wants to do with Twitter

03:08 , Josh Marcus

Elon Musk has tweeted his plans for Twitter and how it might moderate content, ahead of his purchase of the social media site.

The post has reneged on his ‘free speech absolutism’, as he says Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.” Previously, Mr Musk said that he was “against censorship that goes beyond the law” - a rule that, in the United States, would have caused trouble for Twitter’s moderators by potentially allowing Holocaust denial.

“I also very much believe that advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you; it can show you a service or product or medical treatment that you never knew existed, but is right for you. For this to be true, it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content!”

Mr Musk also claimed that there was a “great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”

Mr Musk has previously claimed that Twitter “obv has a strong left wing bias”, despite the company’s own studies that its algorithm amplifies right-wing news outlets more than others.

Elon Musk says what he wants to do with Twitter

Elon Musk’s scandal-filled year

02:30 , Josh Marcus

Elon Musk hasn’t just been making headlines this year with his acquistion of Twitter.

This summer, it came out that the Tesla CEO secretly fathered twins with a high-ranking executive in November of 2021, weeks before the birth of his second child with partner Grimes.

Elon Musk congratulates Nick Cannon on growing his family

He was also accused of sexually harassing a flight attendant on a private jet, which he has denied.

Elon Musk denies exposing himself to flight attendent on private jet

Elon Musk calls Truth Social a ‘rightwing echo chamber’

02:15 , Josh Marcus

ICYMI: Elon Musk has criticised Donald Trump’s Truth Social in the past, calling it an echo chamber.

In an interview with The Financial Times published on Friday, Mr Musk admitted that he knows more headaches are coming his way if his ongoing Twitter bid materialises. However, the Tesla founder said that is a sacrifice he is willing to make in order to protect free speech.

Mr Musk said he is on a personal quest to keep discourse on the social network from becoming one-sided, as Truth Social’s content has become for the right.

“[Truth Social] is essentially a rightwing echo chamber,” Mr Musk told the Times. “It might as well be called Trumpet.”

But in May, Mr Musk also said that he doesn’t think it was appropriate to ban Trump from Twitter, adding that “it was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”

Musk calls Truth Social ‘rightwing echo chamber’ that should be named after Trump

A momentous day for the tech industry

02:05 , Josh Marcus

If today is in fact the day Elon Musk has formally taken over Twitter, it would mark a momentous day in the tech industry.

As the Tesla billionaire assumes control, his rival Mark Zuckerberg at Meta has been struggling with a precipitously plunging stock price.

Here’s Martyn Landi with more information on what’s going on the company FKA Facebook.

Meta stock: What is going wrong for Mark Zuckerberg?

Elon Musk begins takeover of Twitter as top executives including Parag Agrawal fired, report says

02:02 , Josh Marcus

Elon Musk’s takeover is under way after he fired three top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, according to the Washington Post.

The billionaire is also said to have sacked chief financial officer Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, as he moved ahead with his $44bn purchase of the social media company.

Graeme Massie is following this breaking news story for The Independent.

Musk begins Twitter takeover as top executives fired, report says

Elon Musk reportedly fires top executives as takeover formally commences

01:56 , Josh Marcus

Three top executives at Twitter—CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal chief Vijaya Gadde—have all been fired, The Washington Post reports, as Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site formally begins.

Mr Musk has previously clashed with Mr Agrawal during the billionaire’s rocky acquisition bid for Twitter.

In May, the Tesla billionaire even resorted to sending the CEO a message with a poop emoji as the two clashed publicly over issues like the extent of bots on Twitter.

Elon Musk sends obscene emoji to Twitter boss

Twitter employees worry about Elon Musk

01:05 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Following the news that Mr Musk might gut the company after purchasing it, Twitter employees have written an open letter to the billionaire.

“Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation,” the letter says, going on to say that “a threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.”

In a list of demands, the employees ask that Mr Musk not discriminate based on political belief and preserve Twitter’s existing employees. “We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires,” it says.

Twitter had already fired 30 per cent of its recruitment team, as well as two high-profile leads.

Twitter employees demand Elon Musk ‘treat them with dignity’ not like ‘pawns’

Twitter shares to be suspended on NYSE

Friday 28 October 2022 00:01 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Twitter Inc shares will be suspended from trading tomorrow, the New York Stock Exchange’s website showed, as Elon Musk faces a court-ordered deadline to close his $44bn deal.

Equity investors, including Sequoia Capital, Binance, Qatar Investment Authority and others, have received the requisite paperwork for the financing commitment from Musk’s lawyers, Reuters reported.

The completion of the deal would also mark an end to a lawsuit by Twitter, which expects the deal to be completed on its original terms of $54.20 per share.

Musk brings Tesla engineers into Twitter

Thursday 27 October 2022 22:23 , Graeme Massie

The Tesla CEO asked engineers from his automotive company to meet with product leaders from the social media platform on Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

Twitter staff showed their Tesla opposites the company’s code so that they could reportedly assess it and tell Mr Musk what it needed, sources told the news organisation.

Twitter’s engineers reportedly cannot make any changes to the code as of 12pm on Thursday so nothing is changed before the prospective deal closes on Friday.

Ben Shapiro attacks ‘fuming mad’ Twitter staff

Thursday 27 October 2022 21:03 , Graeme Massie

The right-wing commentator took to Twitter to post a video in which he slammed employees at the social media platform for having misgivings about Elon Musk becoming their boss.

“The employees over at Twitter are fuming mad that Elon Musk is taking over. They’re demanding that they not be treated like ‘pawns in a game played by billionaires.’ Meanwhile, the rest of us are pawns in their game of censorship on an open platform. The hypocrisy is ridiculous.”

Twitter staff meet Musk over coffee at HQ

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:47 , Graeme Massie

Elon Musk retweeted a picture posted by author Walter Isaacson, which shows the billionaire chatting with staff at the company’s coffee bar.

Musk intends to take Twitter public again within five years, report says

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:32 , Graeme Massie

Bloomberg has reported that after taking Twitter private with his $44bn deal for the social media platform, Mr Musk intends to take it public again within “three to five years.”

Head of RT begs Elon Musk to ‘unban’ Russian propaganda outfit

Thursday 27 October 2022 19:18 , Graeme Massie

Margarita Simonyan took to Twitter to plead with the billionaire to unban the pro-Kremlin propaganda networks.

“Since you’re all for free speech, maybe unban RT and Sputnik accounts and take the shadow ban off mine as well?” she tweeted.

Elon Musk net worth: Visualising the Tesla and SpaceX boss’ wealth in three charts

Thursday 27 October 2022 18:00 , Adam Smith

Elon Musk has overtaken Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person, having seen his wealth rise from $25 billion to nearly $200bn in less than a year.

The billionaire polymath is best known as the boss of electric car company Tesla and private rocket firm SpaceX, however he also heads brain-tech startup Neuralink and The Boring Company, which aims to “solve traffic” in cities by digging tunnel networks.

Before any of these ventures, Musk gained notoriety in Silicon Valley as the co-founder of online payments platform X.com, which went on to become PayPal.

Each new project has been financed, at least in part, by funds generated from previous business successes, with each new effort becoming ever more ambitious.

Visualising Elon Musk’s vast wealth in three charts

Self-proclaimed ‘socialist’ to ‘red pill’ anti-lockdown crusader: What are Elon Musk’s politics?

Thursday 27 October 2022 17:30 , Adam Smith

Over Mr Musk’s decade-plus of public fame as the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, the South-African-born tycoon has attacked everyone and everything, from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders through individual regulatory officials to Covid rules, trade unions, and “pronouns”.

In May, he capped off months of criticism of US president Joe Biden by revealing that in the past he had “overwhelmingly” voted for Democrats, but would now switch his support to Republicans in at least one future election.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division and hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican,” he said.

What are Elon Musk’s political beliefs?

How Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover impacted its share price

Thursday 27 October 2022 17:00 , Adam Smith

Elon Musk’s activity has had a tumultuous impact on Twitter’s stock.

News of Mr Musk’s investment in the company caused the share price to soar to nearly $50.

Mr Musk then offered to buy the company for $54.20 per share, before saying he was placing the deal “temporarily on hold” and subsequently taking legal action to try to renege on the deal.

The share price has been yo-yoing ever since.

When Twitter sued to enforce the deal in July Mr Musk counter-sued, causing the stock to plunge back to the mid-March depths of $33.

How Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover impacted its share price

Twitter could have an in-built YouTube competitor, Elon Musk hints

Thursday 27 October 2022 16:30 , Adam Smith

Twitter could develop an integrated video feature that would compete with YouTube and generate additional revenue for the app, a singular tweet from Mr Musk has suggested.

A Twitter user posted a thread stating: “Once @elonmusk takes over, I wonder if @TwitterSpaces platform can evolve towards video and compete with @YouTube for content creation...

“It is insane that Twitter has not currently implemented a YouTube clone. Half my tweets are links to YouTube videos. Twitter does not capture any value here. If users could watch monetised videos on Twitter, Twitter would capture ad revs and massively increase [revenues].”

Responding to a Twitter thread about how this might be implemented, Mr Musk posted a winking face emoji.

Elon Musk hints at major update to Twitter

Twitter users have a growing more interested in crypto and pornography

Thursday 27 October 2022 16:00 , Adam Smith

A recent internal report from Twitter demonstrated some of the issues the platform is facing: that Twitter’s highest-growing topics of interest are cryptocurrency and pornography.

Interest in other topics - news, sports and entertainment – has been declining among English-speaking ‘heavy users’.

A "heavy tweeter" is a user defined that logs in to Twitter six or seven days a week, and tweets about three to four times a week.

These people account for under 10 per cent of all users, but generate 90 per cent of tweets and half of the company’s global revenue.

They have been in “absolute decline” since the start of the pandemic, the report says, although no specific conclusions were made about why that would be.

Twitter users are growing more interested in crypto and pornography

Elon Musk plans to cut Twitter’s staff

Thursday 27 October 2022 12:00 , Adam Smith

Mr Musk might have entered Twitter as a meme - let that sink in - but the real consequences of his takeover might be yet to hit the employees of the social media company.

The Tesla billionaire told prospective investors in his deal to buy Twitter that he intends to reduce the company’s staff from around 7,500 down to just over 2,000, reports The Washington Post.

Twitter’s current board had already planned to reduce wages at the company by around $800m by the end of 2023 and reduce staff by 25 per cent, according to the newspaper.

Mr Musk’s comments about free speech and open debate on the platform could see significant cuts to Twitter’s curation and content moderation - which could make the social media site a much worse place for users to be on.

Musk plans to cut Twitter staff by nearly 75 per cent, according to leaked documents

Dogecoin soars as Musk nears Twitter deal completion

Thursday 27 October 2022 09:15 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Dogecoin, the popular meme coin, rallied nearly 16 per cent over the past 24 hours as Elon Musk nears the completion of his $44bn Twitter deal.

The Tesla chief has been a major supporter of dogecoin, which has constantly influenced its price.

In June, the billionaire said he would continue buying dogecoin despite the meme-inspired cryptocurrency losing more than 90 per cent of its value over the last 13 months.

“I will keep supporting dogecoin,” he had tweeted.

Musk chats with Twitter staff over coffee

Thursday 27 October 2022 07:45 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Billionaire Elon Musk, who visited the Twitter headquarters yesterday ahead of closing his $44bn purchasing deal, spent time talking with the staff over coffee.

Twitter’s account manager of customer success Noemi Khachian shared a picture of the soon-to-be boss from the San Francisco office. “Welcome!!! Elon Musk,” she wrote.

“Welcome to the office Elon Musk. Nice chatting with you at an impromptu coffee chat in the perch,” wrote Nate Esparza, technical operations manager at Twitter.

Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

Thursday 27 October 2022 07:04 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Former president Donald Trump remains one of the toughest headaches for managers of social media platforms to date.

With Elon Musk on the verge of closing in the $44bn purchasing deal, one big question looms - What would a Musk takeover of Twitter mean for the 45th president.

Sequestered away at Mar-a-Lago surrounded by only his closest supporters, Mr Trump has done nothing to reform his conduct following bans from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in early 2021 — a consequence of his false claims about the 2020 election fomenting a deadly riot at the US Capitol.

John Bowden has more.

Would Elon Musk allow Donald Trump back on Twitter?

How Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover impacted its share price

Thursday 27 October 2022 06:32 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

A combination of inflation fears and increasing interest rates saw advertising spending on the social media platform plunge, causing Twitter’s stock price to fall from around $63 at the height of the bull market in November to under $33.

But unbeknownst to shareholders, one of Twitter’s most prominent and active users had been quietly buying up shares in the company for several months.

Elon Musk began accumulating Twitter stock in January, and by mid-March he had amassed a five per cent stake in the company.

Bevan Hurley explains how the billionaire’s dalliance with purchasing the platform caused its stock price to frequently fluctuate.

How Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover impacted its share price

Musk tells Twitter employees he will not cut 75 per cent of jobs

Thursday 27 October 2022 06:03 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Elon Musk told Twitter employees that he does not plan to cut 75 per cent of the staff when he acquires the company, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Tesla chief denied the previously reported number in an address to employees at the company’s San Francisco office yesterday.

According to a Washington Post report, the billionaire had told prospective investors that he intends to reduce the company’s staff from around 7,500 down to just over 2,000 after the takeover.

Mr Musk is still expected to cut staff as part of the takeover.

Musk walks into Twitter HQ with a sink

Thursday 27 October 2022 05:51 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Billionaire Elon Musk shared a video of him walking into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink ahead of the Friday deadline to close the $44bn purchase deal.

“Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!” Mr Musk wrote.

He also updated his Twitter bio to read “Chief Twit” and changed his location to “Twitter HQ”.

In the following tweet, Mr Musk wrote: “Meeting a lot of cool people at Twitter today!”

Thursday 27 October 2022 05:02 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Welcome to The Independent’s coverage of Elon Musk’s Twitter deal.