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Elon Musk completes Twitter $44bn takeover

Elon Musk has completed its $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter, according to a range of media reports.

Twitter’s chief executive and chief financial officer have reportedly left, effective immediately.

It ends a saga in which Mr Musk offered to buy the company and then said he wanted to back out before Twitter took legal action to force the world’s richest man to go through with the deal.

Mr Musk tweeted his interest in the platform isn’t making money.

According to US media reports, Twitter boss Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal no longer belong to the company.

The social media platform’s shares will be suspended from trading on Friday, according to the New York Stock Exchange’s website.

Mr Musk said he bought it to help humanity and wanted “civilization to have a common digital marketplace”.

Earlier this week, Mr Musk tweeted a video of himself walking into Twitter headquarters in San Francisco with a kitchen sink, with the caption, “Let that sink in!”

He also changed his Twitter profile to Chief Twit.

Many analysts have argued that the price Mr. Musk is now paying for the company is too high given the decline in the value of many tech stocks and Twitter’s struggle to attract users and grow.

In a recent earnings call, the Tesla founder said Twitter is “an asset that has been languishing for a long time, so to speak, but has incredible potential, although obviously I and the other investors are overpaying for Twitter at the moment.”

Musk’s early investments in Twitter initially escaped public attention. In January, he began making regular stock purchases, so by mid-March he had accumulated a 5% stake in the company.

In April he was unmasked as Twitter’s largest shareholder and a deal was finally reached at the end of the month to buy the company for $44bn (£38bn).

He said he plans to clean up spam accounts and keep the platform a place for free speech.

But by mid-May, Mr Musk, a prolific Twitter user, had begun to change his mind about the purchase, citing concerns that the number of fake accounts on the platform was higher than Twitter was claiming.

In July he said he no longer wanted to take over the company. However, Twitter argued the billionaire was legally bound to buy the company.

Twitter eventually filed a lawsuit to keep him on the deal.

In early October, Mr Musk revived his takeover plans for the company on condition that the court cases would be stayed.

Mr Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has criticized Twitter’s moderation policy, and the news has met with mixed feelings from Twitter users and staff.

Some users, particularly those on the US right, argue that conservative voices are being censored on the platform — an accusation Twitter denies.

Former US President Donald Trump remains banned from the platform – a decision Mr Musk has previously called “stupid” and which he would reverse.

But others fear that relaxing moderation policies would allow hate speech to spread.

In a tweet addressed to Twitter advertisers, Mr Musk said the platform cannot become a “free hellscape” and needs to be “warm and welcoming to everyone”.

As a Twitter owner, it has been widely reported that Mr Musk is planning major staff cuts. However, Bloomberg has reported that in a meeting with employees, the billionaire denied that he would cut 75% of the workforce.

But working at Twitter can get trickier. The Tesla boss previously tweeted that employees should expect “extreme” work ethic expectations.

The entrepreneur also posted that his plans for Twitter include “X, the app for everything.”

Some suggest this could be something similar to the hugely successful Chinese app WeChat, a sort of “super app” that encompasses various services like messaging, social media, payments and food ordering.

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