Photo: AFP
Billionaire Elon Musk is now officially leading Twitter amid the terminations of former CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal, sources with knowledge of the situation told CNBC Thursday (October 27) night.
Vijaya Gadde, who served as the head of the legal policy, trust and safety for the social media company, was also fired, according to the Washington Post.
The reported changes came hours Musk's deadline to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter set for Friday (October 28), which would have resulted in a court battle with the social media company had it not been completed.
Musk had initially threatened to walk away from his $44 billion buyout of Twitter earlier this year, accusing the company of providing false information regarding its spam bot accounts, the Associated Press reported.
Musk's attorneys threatened the social media company in a letter dated June 6 -- which Twitter included in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission -- and state that Musk had repeatedly asked for information since May 9, about a month after his initial buyout offer, to evaluate how many accounts were fake.
The attorneys accused Twitter had offered to only provide details of its testing methods, which they claimed was “tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests.”
In May, Musk revealed his deal to takeover Twitter was "temporarily on hold" while sharing a Reuters article on the social media platform estimating that spam and fake accounts comprise less than 5% of its users.
"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk tweeted early Friday (May 13) morning.
Twitter accepted Musk's $44 billion buyout as part of a deal that is expected to close in 2022, the company confirmed in a news release obtained by CNN on April 25.