Elon Musk to Serve as Twitter CEO after Takeover
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Elon Musk will serve as interim CEO of Twitter after he completes his takeover of the company.
According to sources who spoke with CNBC’s David Faber, Musk will replace current CEO Parag Agarwal to steer the corporation through the early phases of his yet unannounced plan to “transform” Twitter as a private company. Musk had previously been harshly critical of Agarwal, who has come under attack from conservatives for the company’s restrictions on the speech of right-leaning users.
Under Agarwal’s leadership, several prominent right-wing users — including satire news outlet The Babylon Bee, Congresswomen Lauren Boebert (R., Colo) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., G.A.), and James O’Keefe, founder of the investigative group ‘Project Veritas’ — had their accounts either suspended or individual Tweets hidden or flagged by the company. Musk himself had echoed the criticism of selective targeting of conservatives by Twitter.
Agarwal had previously said that he “didn’t know” what direction the company would take under Elon Musk. If Musk takes the helm of Twitter, which is expected by November, Agarwal will have served for one year.
The news also comes as Musk secured new funding from outside investors to support his acquisition of the company. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released on Thursday morning lists 19 new investors who have signed onto the deal.
The diverse list includes Oracle’s billionaire founder and CEO Larry Ellison, top venture capital fund Sequoia, and Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, among others. The size of contributions ranges from $8.5 million to $1 billion, making for a total sum of $7.139 billion, per the filing. In conjunction, Musk will reduce his margin loan from Morgan Stanley, previously his sole financing partner, from $12 billion to $6.25 billion.
The list also includes foreign investors, such as Qatar Holding LLC, a sovereign wealth fund for the Gulf kingdom, Canadian asset manager firm Brookfield, and Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. The latter, already a shareholder in Twitter owning 4 percent of the company, had previously been opposed to Musk’s acquisition. Thursday’s SEC filing indicates that he will use his voting power to support Musk’s acquisition at a shareholders’ vote, though a financial commitment has not yet been made.
A source at a major Wall Street investment bank with a stake in Twitter told National Review that the deal’s foreign partners raises its prospect of being reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a federal regulator, which could delay the acquisition. However, he said these partners are “known quantities” in the financial world, and already have significant U.S. investments.
Musk is said to have personally chosen the investors listed, a decision taken to reduce his sales of Tesla stock to pay for the company. Tesla’s share price, upon news of Musk’s sales, had declined significantly over the past week, and was down 3 percent on Thursday.
