Elon Musk Becomes Twitter CEO, Will Scrap Permanent Bans: Report

Elon Musk has completed his transformation into “Chief Twit” by appointing himself CEO of Twitter after completing his $44 billion USD acquisition of the social media company.

the bird is freed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

Musk has taken over as CEO from Parag Agrawal, who he fired on Thursday. The eccentric entrepreneur plans to serve as CEO in the interim but may eventually hand the reins over to someone else, a person with knowledge of the developments said.

Along with former CEO Parag Agrawal, Musk on Thursday also sacked CFO Ned Segal, head of legal Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett as one of his first acts as the owner of now-private Twitter. According to reports from several media outlets, some of the executives were escorted out of Twitter headquarters by security.

Musk has completed his long-embattled Twitter acquisition, which he previously spent months trying to pull out of, just in time for a court-issued October 28 deadline.

Twitter engineers were barred from making any changes to the social network’s code on Thursday. Musk sent Tesla engineers over to Twitter HQ the same day to scrutinize the code and report back to him, as reported by Bloomberg (via Tesla North).

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said in a letter, titled “Dear Twitter Advertisers,” shared on Thursday that he wants Twitter to be “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”

To that end, Musk is expected to soften Twitter’s content moderation standards. According to Bloomberg‘s source, he also plans to scrap permanent bans on the platform because he doesn’t believe in lifelong prohibitions.

Doing so could facilitate the return of users who were banned under Twitter’s former leadership — such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and rapper Kanye West.

A report from last week indicated Musk is will cut jobs by the thousands after taking over at Twitter. Musk was rumoured to be planning a 75% reduction in Twitter’s workforce, which currently comprises about 7,500 employees. However, he denied those numbers during his visit to Twitter HQ on Thursday.