Elon Musk buys Twitter, executives exit

Early on Friday, October 28th, 2022 Elon Musk finalized his deal to buy Twitter according to a filing by the SEC.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and General Counsel Sean Edgett immediately left the company.

Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter officially began back in April 2022. In what many at first thought was a joke, the billionaire Tesla CEO submitted his purchase proposal at $54.20 per share.

Twitter filed for the delisting of shares from the New York stock exchange shortly after the deal closed Friday. This completed the transition from a publicly traded company to a private one.

What does all this mean for Twitter and its almost 400 million users?

Musk’s first move was, of course, to Tweet:

the bird is freed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

What comes next is anyone’s guess, but Musk has publicly stated he intends to do the following:

Conducting a mass unbanning of Twitter users

Removing lifetime account bans

Reworking Twitter’s algorithm to promote free speech

Removal of fake/bot accounts

Downsize Twitter’s staff

Unbanning users is a straightforward process that can be accomplished quickly. Reworking Twitter’s algorithm and battling the bot account problem are much more complex issues.

These potential changes have rustled up some major concerns from both users and advertisers on the platform. In a direct response to Twitter advertisers, Musk released the following statement on the eve of the takeover:

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence…Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

The average Twitter user likely won’t notice any immediate changes on the platform. But some major questions remain:

Will Musk’s takeover affect the release of upcoming features such as Edit Tweet and Twitter Notes?
Will Twitter’s userbase grow or shrink with the unbanning of accounts and anti-Musk exodus?
How will advertisers react to Twitter’s newly relaxed content moderation policies?

Right now, we just don’t know.

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Troy Nielsen is an Inbound Marketing Specialist and associate editor of the Hootsuite blog the industry's largest social media blog with more than 4 million monthly visitors.

Troy completed his B.A. in Mass Communication and Media Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2017. He began his content marketing career as a freelance writer and expanded into copywriting, content strategy, SEO, PPC, and social media advertising.

Before joining Hootsuite in 2022, Troy worked with digital marketing agencies, SaaS startups, higher education institutions, and has covered professional sports ( NHL and NFL ) as well as esports. Find more of his credentials on LinkedIn.

Based in Surrey, BC, when Troy isn’t at his desk he’s usually out in the mountains, either camping where there’s no reception, touring a winery, or enjoying the slopes of one of the many local ski hills.

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