The world’s richest man, Elon Musk has closed a $44bn deal to take over ownership of social media service, Twitter.
Confirming the takeover, Musk tweeted “the bird is freed”.
Upon his assumption, he fired a number of top executives such as chief executive Parag Agrawal, as well as the company’s chief financial officer and its head of safety, it was gathered.
The closure of the deal brings to a close a saga a long and drawn out back-and-forth between the billionaire and the social network. that saw Twitter go to court to hold the multi-billionaire to the terms of a takeover deal that he had tried to escape.
Musk had tried to step back from the Twitter deal soon after his unsolicited offer was accepted in April, and said in July he was canceling the contract because he was misled by Twitter over the number of fake “bot” accounts — allegations rejected by the company.
The takeover came hours before the court-appointed deadline for Musk to seal his on-again, off-again deal to purchase the social media network.