Musk Fires Twitter Execs as Platform Braces for Donald Trump’s Return

Elon Musk in Norway on August 29, 2022 (left) and former president Donald Trump on October. 27, 2022, at Trump National Doral Golf 
Club in Doral, FL.

Elon Musk in Norway on August 29, 2022 (left) and former president Donald Trump on October. 27, 2022, at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, FL.
Photo: AFP (Getty Images)

Elon Musk fired not less than 4 senior executives at Twitter and is predicted to make himself CEO after finalizing the deal to purchase the corporate for $44 billion on Thursday. Users of the social media platform are bracing for sweeping adjustments to the platform, together with the reintroduction of white supremacists like former president Donald Trump, who was banned shortly after his tried coup on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, prime coverage govt Vijaya Gadde, and common counsel Sean Edgett, in line with the Wall Street Journal. Edgett was even escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, in line with Bloomberg News.

And whereas it’s not instantly clear who Musk plans to put in in an effort to exchange all these individuals, Bloomberg News reviews Musk will appoint himself CEO, regardless of already being the chief govt of SpaceX and Tesla.

“the bird is freed,” Musk tweeted shortly earlier than midnight.

Musk has beforehand expressed curiosity in turning Twitter into the form of “super app” that’s extra widespread in nations like China, the place apps like WeChat deal with a a lot bigger number of providers, together with funds.

The hostile takeover deal at $52.40 per share, which Musk tried to nix over supposed concern concerning the variety of bots on Twitter, consists of financing from U.S. oligarch Larry Ellison, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Sequoia Capital, and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, amongst loads of others. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted in a single day that the cryptocurrency firm additionally contributed $500 million to the deal.

Twitter will probably be delisted from the inventory market on Friday, changing into a privately owned firm, and can tackle $13 billion within the deal, in line with the Wall Street Journal.

A report from the Washington Post claimed final week that members of the Biden administration had thought-about placing the Twitter deal below a nationwide safety assessment, given Musk’s in depth overseas financing and proximity to the Chinese Communist Party, however the White House denied the accuracy of that report this week.

Musk sought to calm the appreciable issues of Twitter’s massive company advertisers on Thursday with an announcement on the social media platform outlining his imaginative and prescient for the longer term. And regardless of beforehand calling himself a “free speech absolutist,” Musk assured advertisers the positioning can be “warm and welcoming to all,” promising it wouldn’t grow to be a “free-for-all hellscape.”

Far-right customers of Twitter had been unquestionably joyous in a single day, with many thanking Musk for getting the platform and shortly firing executives. Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysian influencer on the social media web site who beforehand labored for Milo Yiannopoulos, inspired his followers to put up offensive memes late Thursday. The thread was stuffed with the sorts of transphobic, racist, and antisemitic tweets that common customers of the positioning are involved will grow to be far more prevalent now that Twitter is owned by Musk.

Yiannopoulos, a Nazi-adjacent shock character who lately transitioned right into a gay conversion therapy guru, is only one of many individuals who’ve been banned from Twitter over time for extremist language who will possible have the chance to get their accounts reinstated. Others embrace conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer, holocaust denier Chuck Johnson, former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke, and former Trump advisor Roger Stone.

Will manufacturers like Pampers and Oreos nonetheless purchase promoting on Twitter in order that these all-American names can seem subsequent to David Duke’s specific model of race-hate? Probably not. And advertisers have already expressed issues about all the pieces from hate on the platform to Musk’s potential conflicts of curiosity accepting automotive promoting on condition that he’s already CEO of electrical automobile firm Tesla.

As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, not less than a dozen main manufacturers have requested to pause all promoting on Twitter when Donald Trump is reinstated, whereas others are in “wait-and-see mode.” Advertising made up 89% of Twitter’s in income final 12 months, totaling over $5 billion, in line with the Wall Street Journal, and any main shortfall is unlikely to be made up in some form of subscription based mostly mannequin, as Musk has talked about previously.

And whereas Trump has beforehand stated he wouldn’t re-join Twitter, even when he had been allowed, that’s clearly bullshit. Trump clearly loved having a approach of speaking with the general public straight and his exercise on rival social media web site Truth Social has been roughly ignored by the general public at massive since he left workplace.

Twitter is a tiny social media firm in contrast with different huge names like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, however it’s spent the previous decade because the digital water cooler of political journalists. Trump actually is aware of that getting again on Twitter would get him the eye he so desperately craves and would permit him to plant the required seeds for sowing much more hate and division earlier than taking a stab at operating for president once more in 2024.

Unfortunately for humanity, the timing of Musk’s buy is nice for Trump, since he’ll have loads of time to get his messages out earlier than the state primaries and caucuses, to say nothing of the midterm election that’s taking place November 8. Trump followers have already promised they received’t settle for any end result that doesn’t see Republicans win across the board. And if Republicans sweep the House, they’re nearly sure to question President Biden.


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