HIT THE ROAD: Musk fires top Twitter execs on his first day at the helm of tech giant

11/01/2022 / By Belle Carter

Billionaire Elon Musk quickly made his presence felt after finally taking over Twitter on Oct. 27. Musk fired several Twitter executives as he made his way into the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

Among the Twitter bigwigs shown the door were Parag Agrawal (former CEO), Ned Segal (CFO), Sean Edgett (general counsel) and Vijaya Gadde (head of legal policy, trust and safety). According to a Business Insider report, the South African-born Musk publicly feuded with Agrawal in July as the SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO accused the latter of misleading him and other investors.

The bickering between Musk and Agrawal stemmed from the former’s warning that he might not proceed with his purchase due to the number of fake accounts on the site. The social media platform then sued Musk in July, forcing him to honor his original $44 billion deal first announced in April.

Three months later in October, Musk finally made up his mind to purchase the company at $54.20 per share – which Twitter accepted. (Related: Elon Musk changes course, now says he plans to go through with Twitter purchase.)

Musk later posted a manifesto for advertisers that explained why he purchased the platform, saying that he completed the purchase out of his “love for humanity” and a desire to “expand the digital public square.”

“Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise,” he stated.

Musk, a self-declared advocate of free speech, promised that any moves to cut back restrictions would not turn the platform into a “hellscape.” According to Musk, removing constraints will help reduce polarization in today’s particularly fraught political landscape.

Twitter inundated with 50K tweets following Musk’s entry

Musk said on Oct. 29 that no new changes will be made to the site’s content moderation policies, pending the formation of a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” he added.

Twitter has been hit by a coordinated trolling campaign following his takeover, with more than 50,000 tweets from 300 accounts attempting to make users think the platform has dropped or weakened its content policies.

Yoel Roth, the site’s current head of safety and integrity, agreed with Musk’s initial statement and said those running the site had not changed content policies but had been subject to “an organized effort to make people think we have.”

Roth reported they found a “ton” of tweets posted by a small number of accounts featuring slurs and other derogatory terms. The said tweets that repeatedly used one unspecified slur came from just 300 “inauthentic” accounts. The users involved had been banned, according to the him.

“We’ve taken action to ban the users involved in this trolling campaign – and are going to continue working to address this in the days to come to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone,” he posted. “Our rules prohibit hateful conduct. This includes targeting people with dehumanizing content and slurs.”

Analysts say that the attacks could be primarily caused by Musk’s statement to relax content policies and reinstate banned accounts such as those controlled by former U.S. President Donald Trump and right-wing British political commentator Katie Hopkins.

Moreover, Musk has previously talked about creating a super app called X in which multiple services such as shopping, ordering food and ride-hailing can be requested.

“The long-term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value,” he said on Tesla’s call with analysts on October 19.

Visit ElonMuskWatch.com for more stories about Musk’s tenure as Twitter CEO.