Elon Musk
Highlight
- Elon Musk is likely to take over as the temporary CEO of Twitter when a $44 billion acquisition deal is struck.
- Musk details plans in presentations to potential funders for acquisition: report
- Twitter, led by Agarwal, fears that Musk’s ‘free speech’ agenda could hurt its $4.5B/year advertising business.
Elon Musk is likely to take over as the temporary CEO of Twitter when the $44 billion acquisition deal is done, media reported on Thursday.
According to a CNBC report, Musk has detailed plans for the acquisition in presentations to potential funders.
Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal has been leading the micro-blogging platform since November, after taking over from Jack Dorsey.
CNBC’s David Faber, who first broke the news of Dorsey stepping down as Twitter CEO, has now claimed that Musk will be the temporary CEO at the company for a few months.
A fresh US SEC filing on Thursday also revealed that Musk has secured about $7.14 billion in equity commitments from friends and other investors to acquire Twitter.
Musk received $1 billion from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and $5 million from Honeycomb Asset Management, which invested in his SpaceX company, the report noted.
Twitter’s stock jumped nearly 3 per cent after the latest news, while Tesla shares fell more than 4 per cent.
Amid fears of a mass exodus from Twitter, employees told Agarwal about his uncertain future after Musk took over last week.
At a town hall meeting on Friday, employees asked Agarwal for answers on how the company plans to handle the “mass exodus induced by Musk”.
Agarwal replied that he believed “the Twitter organization of the future will continue to care about its impact on the world and its customers”.
Twitter, led by Agarwal, fears that Musk’s “free speech” agenda could hurt its $4.5 billion annual advertising business.
Advertisers are having nightmares because free speech can hinder their chances on the platform as their brand name can appear with hate speech and without restraint abusive or dangerous content.
About 26 activist organizations and NGOs have signed a letter to Twitter advertisers asking Musk to boycott the platform if he changes content moderation.
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