Twitter: not a hellscape, but helping humanity

Twitter: not a hellscape, but helping humanity

28. Oktober 2022 0 Von Horst Buchwald

Twitter: not a hellscape, but helping humanity

San Francisco, Oct. 28, 2022

Elon Musk has fired five high-ranking Twitter executives after completing his $44 billion acquisition of the company Thursday night. The employees who were let go include CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette.

According to a report filed Friday with the SEC, the merger is now complete. This ends a months-long legal battle between Musk and the social media platform that nearly culminated in a trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Twitter shares will now be delisted from the stock market and the company will go private on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Musk’s subsidiary X Holdings I, Inc. will now own all shares of the company.

Musk has appointed himself CEO of Twitter. However, it could not be ruled out that he will also relinquish this post, according to sources close to some reportedly well-informed circles.

Severance payments for the three executives are estimated at around $122 million, according to Equilar, a company that specializes in researching executive compensation.

The „golden parachutes“ are said to amount to $57.4 million for Agrawal, $44.5 million for Segal and $20 million for Gadde. Figures for Edgett and Personette were not available.

On Thursday, Musk released a message saying that „most“ of the speculation about why he bought Twitter and his thoughts about advertising are „wrong. It added: „Twitter obviously cannot become a hellscape where everything can be said without consequence,“ he clarified.

Musk said he wants to eliminate permanent bans on the platform, get a handle on the number of spam bots and fake accounts, and open up content recommendation algorithms to the public. He also said he wanted to „try to help humanity, which I love.“