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How it started:

The entire story of Elon Musk’s attempt to own Twitter had started as a joke. At least that’s what people thought. A user’s tweet to Musk “You should buy Twitter” to which he asked how much is it for. The tweet of buying Twitter was becoming a reality in April 2022. A regulatory filling revealed that Musk owned about 9% shares of the company. This means he is a major shareholder. Basically shareholders are the owners of the company. Sensing the danger, Twitter invited him to join the Board of Directors. Musk turned down the offer he didn’t want a seat at the table, he wanted the entire company. CEO Parag Agrawal for the sake of transparency tweeted about Musk not joining the Board and the company is always open to input from shareholders. The corporate world became aware that Musk had big plans.

Poison Pill

Musk made an offer to buy Twitter for $43 billion i.e $54.20 per share and take the company private. The company activated the poison pill strategy to thwart the takeover. The Poison Pill strategy was popularised in 1980’s. In this strategy anyone with a stake of at least 15% in the company without Board’s approval shall be subject to penalty. If anyone would hit the 15% mark then the Board can grant the existing shareholders the right to buy one thousandth of a share of preferred stock for each common share they own, at a price of $210. This option made Twitter a very costly company to buy. Eventually the fillings revealed that the company had agreed to Musk’s proposal of $43 billion.

To buy or not to buy

When you buy a company forcefully it is difficult to find support from the existing employees. The buyout deal was put on hold because data showed that fake accounts represent 5% of active users. When Musk employed his team to look into the matter they faced non-cooperation from the staff for providing data. The company was right in its place to refuse data sharing because there was no official agreement in place. Both the parties had only agreed the deal. The company filed a lawsuit against him for backing out from the deal. To avert the legal drama Musk finally decided to proceed with the original agreed deal of $44 billion on the condition that Twitter drops the lawsuit. Musk and Twitter closed the deal on October 27, 2022 making Musk the new owner. He immediately fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, Legal affairs and policy chief Vijay Gadde and General Counsel Sean Edgett.

Elon Musk – CEO of Twitter

Musk completed the acquisition in October 2022. He fired CEO Parag Agrawal, contract workers and employees. Any post against the new CEO was taken down. The fired employees couldn’t say any negative about the company on Twitter. All company updates were given by Musk himself from his official Twitter handle. He had big plans for the company. The blue tick feature, reinstating Trump’s handle were some of the changes he wanted. Everyone loved the plans but not how they were put to execution. Rome was not built in a day. You cannot revamp the entire company in limited time period. His core team consisted of Indian engineer Sriram Krishnan and others in a temporary capacity. He had dissolved the Board. He was single handedly playing many roles.

Is it the end of Elon Musk in Twitter?

#RIPTwitter trended on social media platform with all the negative news leaking from the company. Musk posted this meme in response.

The year which started with Elon Musk’s numerous attempts to own Twitter ended with his tweet saying he will step down as CEO if he finds a worthy successor. He tweeted “as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!”