Musk dissolves board of directors and becomes Twitter’s CEO
Following mass layoffs across the company, Elon Musk made his final move by dissolving Twitter’s board of directors and appointing himself CEO.
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Following mass layoffs across the company, Elon Musk made his final move by dissolving Twitter’s board of directors and appointing himself CEO.
After finally going through with the $44 billion deal last week, Musk started his ownership with a series of firings. As such, he let go of Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. They were accused of providing misleading information about the number of fake accounts on Twitter.
Previously, Musk changed his Twitter profile description to “Chief Twit,” which now seems like some proper foreshadowing, considering that the entrepreneur became the sole director of the company and Twitter CEO, as was revealed in a Monday’s securities filing.
“In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement [...] the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou,” the filings said.
In a tweet, Musk later called the change “temporary.”
Yet, some employees are leaving voluntarily. As such, Twitter's Chief Consumer Officer Sarah Personette, who was the head of advertising, announced her resignation.
Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand also left Twitter last week. According to Reuters, some other senior executives have resigned, including Chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, Twitter's head of product Jay Sullivan, and its vice president of global sales, Jean-Philippe Maheu.
Currently, the future direction of the company remains unclear. Musk has made certain changes, such as to the platform’s verification process. Now, the previously optional Twitter Blue service will become mandatory, forcing users to pay $8 a month to retain their verified badges.
Hateful speech has also become a common occurrence since Musk’s takeover: as such, the Network Contagion Research Institute has recorded a nearly 500% increase in the use of the n-word on Twitter.