Elon Musk fires entire Twitter board, becomes CEO

Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk, who recently changed his Twitter bio to 'Chief Twit', will serve as its chief executive after he fired its CEO Parag Agrawal and other board officials last week. Musk closed the $44-billion deal to buy the microblogging platform last Friday, ending a months-long legal tussle between Twitter's previous management and the mega-billionaire.

In an SEC filing, Twitter said on October 27, 2022, as a result of the consummation of the merger, Musk has come to the sole director of Twitter. "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 statement said.

So apart from Tesla, Musk now runs four companies as its chief -- SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunnelling company The Boring Company, and Twitter.

After the buyout deal, Twitter has ceased to list on the stock exchanges, while Musk-run Tesla has seen a third of its value erode since April when he made an open offer to buy Twitter. In contrast, the benchmark S&P declined 12% during that period. From its all-time high of $407.36 on November 5, 2021, the Tesla stock closed at $227.54 on NASDAQ on Monday. In the past six months, the stock has fallen by 24.40%.

On dissolving Twitter, the billionaire, in a Twitter post, without explaining said, "This is just temporary". With this, it's assumed that a new board of directors will be formed soon, which will comprise people who he trusts to lead the company in a new direction. The Twitter filings also show that after the merger, each issued and outstanding share of Twitter’s common stock was cancelled and converted into the right to receive $54.20 in cash, without interest.

Besides, Twitter is all set for changes he had promised to make it the world's best digital “town square”. Since the takeover, Musk's teams have reportedly been meeting employees of Twitter to examine Twitter's software code and understand how it can be made better for users. Musk is also planning layoffs across departments, as some reports suggest, ahead of the final date of the stock grants disbursement to the employees.

The Tesla CEO had already fired the top brass at the microblogging platform, including CEO Parag Agrawal, policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal, a day after closing the much-awaited $44-billion deal. Parag Agrawal has also removed the 'CEO' tag from his Twitter bio.

Musk, who's a prolific Twitter user, is constantly seeking advice on the platform to make it better. In a recent tweet, he said the company will soon revise its user verification process. "Whole verification process is being revamped right now," he said. Besides, Twitter's Blue Tick may come at a cost now, with the billionaire planning to charge $4.99 a month for this facility.