San Francisco – Elon Musk has hit the ground sprinting after his Twitter takeover, seeking major changes to the platform only days after finalising his controversial $44 billion (about R803bn) purchase.
Documents filed on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that Musk has become Twitter's sole director after finalising the deal last week and dissolving its corporate board.
The documents state that the “consummation of the merger” occurred on October 27, at which point “Mr Musk became the sole director of Twitter”, while the entire board, including CEO Parag Agrawal, were let go.
When he made his initial buyout offer in April, Musk – also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – stated that he intended to remove Twitter from the public market, after which fewer public disclosures would be required.
When the unpredictable billionaire tried to walk away from the deal, Twitter sued Musk in a Delaware court.
But with an October trial date looming, Musk revived the deal in early October, ultimately sealing the takeover at $54.20 per share last week.
After changing his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit”, Musk reportedly worked with software engineers from Tesla at the weekend to look under the hood of the one-to-many messaging platform, and on planning massive retrenchments.
The team has reportedly been attempting to monetise Twitter's identity verification feature, which gives certain users a prized blue tick next to their profile.
One option, The Verge reports, would be to require verified users to sign up for the platform's paid subscription service, Twitter Blue, which at present costs just under $5 a month.
That price would increase to about $20 a month, and if unpaid, verified users would lose their blue tick.
“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” tweeted Musk on Sunday.
The new boss has also asked teams to relaunch Vine by the end of the year, news site Axios reported.
Twitter bought the ultra-short video app in 2012, long before TikTok became the format's dominant player, but shuttered it four years later.
“The Washington Post” has reported that the multi-billionaire plans to fire 75% of his new company's 7 500 employees.
Musk's previous comments condemning Twitter's content moderation policies as heavy-handed – as well as his frequent posts of boundary-testing memes – has given pause to some advertisers, the company's main source of revenue.
He tried to calm the nerves by reassuring that the site would not become a “free-for-all hellscape”, and announced the formation of a content moderation council.
On Monday, he travelled to New York, where his team met several advertisers to try to reassure them, according to business publication “The Information”.
The new Musk-led entity formed under the merger agreement has also offered to buy back all of Twitter's outstanding bonds, according to the SEC filing.
Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, financed the massive deal through a mixture of his own funds, money from other investment groups and loans from banks which will have to be reimbursed.
According to another Twitter document filed with the SEC, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal has become the site's second largest shareholder.
The businessman, who had initially rejected Musk's offer as too low compared to Twitter's “intrinsic value”, eventually contributed the nearly 35 million shares he already owned.
“Dear friend ‘Chief Twit’ @elonmusk,” wrote Al-Waleed on Twitter last Friday with a statement announcing the rollover of his shares.
Dear friend "Chief Twit" @elonmusk
Together all the way 🤝🏻 @Twitter https://t.co/J9rnd013xz pic.twitter.com/bXo6RUaUwk
“Together all the way,” he added, with an emoji of two hands shaking.
AFP