Elon Musk took charge of Twitter and has fired its board of directors, making him the sole director and giving himself full control over it, as per a company filing.
Musk became the “sole director” of Twitter after closing the deal of $44bn and took over the company the past week, as per the documents filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.
He also tweeted later on Monday that the arrangement would be “temporary” without further explaining anything.
The Tesla CEO, who also runs a Spaceflight Company named ‘SpaceX’ and neurotechnology startup ‘Neuralink’, began his term as the CEO of the company on Thursday by firing executives, including the CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal.
He has also extended his offer to buy back all of Twitter’s outstanding bonds, as per the SEC filing.
The Richest Person In The World
Musk, currently the world’s richest person with a net worth of $210 billion, close the deal with the company through a combination of his own wealth, investment funds, and bank loans.
Another SEC filing showed that Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud had become Twitter’s second-largest shareholder.
The War On Free Speech
The acquisition of Twitter by Musk has ignited a heated discussion regarding the equilibrium between unrestricted speech and safeguarding susceptible communities from online harassment.
Musk, a self-described “free-speech authoritarian”, has denounced Twitter’s ‘moderation policies’ and accused the company of being biased towards the views of the ‘left-wing’.
In spite of the fact that Musk has yet to detail his precise plans for the social media platform, he is broadly expected to ease control rules and cut a huge part of the company’s employees.
Whilst confessing that Twitter cannot be a “free-for-all hellscape”, He further stressed the need for a “common digital town square” where one can express and debate about a wide range of views.
Musk, who has conveyed distress with Twitter’s dependence on advertising, has likewise flagged a premium in requiring users to pay for the ‘blue tick’ used to confirm accounts of prominent people or organizations and offering various versions of the digital platform in light of a film-like rating system.
