Elon Musk Buys Twitter for $44B Following Legal Battle with Company, Fires Top Execs: Reports

Mar. 15, 2025

Elon Muskhas purchased Twitter after all.

And as his first official act, he’s fired three of the social media platform’s top executives.

Insiders toldCNNthat Musk has taken over Twitter, and that CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives were let go shortly after.

Musk’s lawyer and representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Sources toldThe Washington Postthat along with Agrawal, Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal were all taken away from the building via shuttle after they were terminated. Twitter’s general counsel Sean Edgett was also fired.

The sale marks the end of a months-long back-and-forth between the company and the Tesla founder, 51, who announced his plans toback out of his agreementto buy Twitter back in July.

Elon Musk.Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

It also comes after the billionaire businessman sent a letter to Twitter Oct. 3, according toBloombergandThe New York Times, proposing the acquisition of the platform at the original price he agreed to pay for the company in April: $44 billion at $54.20 per share.

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According to Bloomberg, a source familiar with the matter said Musk decided to move forward with the deal after his legal team sensed he would lose if the case ultimately went to trial.

Elon Musk, Parag Agrawal.Maja Hitij/Getty; Kevin Dietsch/Getty

Twitterlaunched the lawsuitagainst Musk in July, hoping to “compel” him to follow through with the acquisition.

“In April 2022, Elon Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done,” Twitter said in the complaint, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery in July. “Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” it continued.

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“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,” the company claimed.

Days before the lawsuit was launched, Musk ended his deal to buy the company, alleging that Twitter was in “breach of multiple provisions” of an original agreement.

Musk claimed that Twitter did not provide enough information about the number of fake accounts and bots on its network and didn’t give his team sufficient data to do their own investigation. These allegations, which Twitter denied, were reiterated in Musk’scountersuit.

During an Oct. 19 Tesla earnings call, Musk said he was “excited” about the purchase, citing what he sees as the platform’s “incredible potential,” but also said he believed he and other investors are “obviously overpaying for Twitterright now.”

“The long-term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater [than] its current value,” Musk added on the call,Insider reported.

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In April, whenTwitter first announced it had"entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired," Musk shared a statement about how he wanted to make the company “better than ever.”

“Twitter has tremendous potential,” he wrote in April, “I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

source: people.com