The bird is free: Elon Musk confirms the completion of the acquisition of Twitter... and fires several executives

Steph Deschamps / October 28, 2022

Elon Musk tweeted the bird is free Thursday night, referring to Twitter's nickname - the blue bird - after taking control of the platform he acquired for $44 billion, six months after his bid was accepted.

The Tesla boss had said earlier in the day that he was buying Twitter to "help humanity" and allow all opinions to be expressed freely on the social network.

Anonymous sources had told the Washington Post earlier in the day that Elon Musk had taken control of Twitter and immediately fired the boss Parag Agrawal and two other executives, the chief financial officer Ned Segal and the head of legal affairs Vijaya Gadde.

Elon Musk had until Friday to complete the acquisition of the social network, otherwise a trial would have taken place in November.

The deal has been dragging on since the announcement in late April of a $44 billion acquisition offer, which Twitter reluctantly accepted.

The entrepreneur tried to unilaterally walk away from the deal in early July, accusing the company of lying to him, but the company's board of directors took the matter to court.

Earlier this month, just days before the start of a trial that Twitter seemed likely to win, Elon Musk finally offered to close the deal at the price originally agreed.