Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal is among executives planning to depart as Elon Musk completes his $44 billion deal to take over the social network, according to people familiar with the matter.
Also departing are Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017; and Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012, according to people familiar with the matter said on grounds of anonymity.
The departures came as the first move by Musk who took over the microblogging platform. “The bird is freed,” Musk said in a tweet after closing the deal.
On late Thursday, Musk completed the $44 billion takeover on the eve of a court-appointed deadline to seal his on-again, off-again deal and immediately fired its Indian-origin CEO Parag Agrawal, as well as the company’s other top executives.
Shareholders will be paid $54.20 per share, and Twitter will now operate as a private company. The completion caps a convoluted saga that began in January with the billionaire’s quiet accumulation of a major stake in the company, his growing exasperation with how it’s run and an eventual merger accord that he later spent months trying to unravel.