(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. and Elon Musk took additional actions on Monday to consolidate management of the corporate beneath its new proprietor, together with launching a proposal to purchase again all the excellent bonds and dismissing the board.
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Musk, 51, accomplished his buy of Twitter final week for $44 billion and instantly began molding the corporate to his liking. One of the primary steps Musk took was to fireplace 4 of essentially the most senior executives of the corporate, together with Parag Agrawal, the chief govt officer. Calling himself Chief Twit, Musk plans to successfully run the corporate himself within the instant time period, individuals acquainted with his plans have stated.
On Monday, Musk turned the only real director of the social media firm after the elimination of all 9 different board members, in accordance with the phrases of the merger settlement, in accordance with a securities submitting. It wasn’t clear who Musk would nominate to fill the board. At the opposite corporations he runs, together with Tesla Inc., the boards are filled with Musk loyalists. His brother Kimbal Musk, is a board member at Tesla, for instance.
According to the submitting, Twitter will buy excellent 3.875% senior notes due 2027 and 5% senior notes due 2030 at a proposal worth of 101% of principal plus accrued and unpaid curiosity, in accordance with a submitting Monday. The bond agreements required Twitter to supply to purchase again its debt within the occasion of a change answerable for the corporate. Musk has additionally requested a choose to dismiss a lawsuit over his try to tug out of the acquisition now that the deal has closed.
Musk’s first few days on the job have been full of rumor and hypothesis, together with about how he’ll deal with content material moderation on Twitter and what number of jobs he’ll reduce in an effort to regulate prices. Concerns over huge layoffs swirled within the run-up to Musk’s take-private transaction, when potential buyers had been instructed that he’d eradicate 75% of the workforce. Musk later denied that the cuts can be that deep, although he hasn’t elaborated on the plans. In current weeks, Musk has hinted at his staffing priorities, saying he desires to give attention to the core product.
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Just three days in to his new job, the billionaire’s views on content material moderation had been additionally being examined after he posted and deleted a tweet spreading a baseless anti-LGBTQ conspiracy idea concerning the current assault on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The episode underscored the pressures that Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” now faces in working the favored social media web site — notably in place limits on misinformation and hate speech on its service. Musk has pledged to advertisers that Twitter gained’t turn into a “free-for-all hellscape” beneath his management however on the identical time pronounced that unfettered speech ought to be the norm on the positioning.
–With help from Kurt Wagner and Davey Alba.
(Updates with background on the transaction all through)
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