Elon Musk completes $44bn Twitter takeover

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter, according to an investor in the firm.

A number of top executives, including the boss, Parag Agrawal, have reportedly been fired.

It brings to a close a saga that saw Twitter go to court to hold the billionaire to the terms of a takeover deal that he had tried to escape.

Mr. Musk tweeted that his interest in the firm was not about making money.

Twitter investor Ross Gerber, who is chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki Investments in California, confirmed to the BBC that the deal had been completed.

“I think the court pushed him over the line,” said Mr. Gerber. “Quite frankly, this has sort of been a disaster from the beginning, of course, starting off very aggressively courting Twitter in a way that really forced Twitter to the table… then getting all upset and having a public spat over what to me were pretty well known issues.”

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The company’s chief executive, Mr. Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and the firm’s top legal and policy executive, Vijaya Gadde, are no longer with the company, according to US media reports.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone thanked Mr. Agrawal, Mr. Segal and Ms Gadde for their “collective contribution” to the business.

Mr. Musk said he bought the social media platform to help humanity and he wanted “civilization to have a common digital town square”.

Earlier this week Mr. Musk tweeted a video of himself walking into Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco carrying a kitchen sink with the caption: “let that sink in!”

Many analysts argued the price Mr. Musk is now paying for the company is too high given the decline in the values of many tech stocks and Twitter’s struggle to attract users and grow.

On a recent earnings call, the Tesla founder said Twitter was “an asset that has just sort of languished for a long time, but has incredible potential, although obviously I and the other investors are overpaying for Twitter right now”.