"The bird is freed," new Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted after he completed his $44 billion acquisition on Thursday, referencing Twitter's bird logo in an apparent nod to his desire to see the company have fewer limits on content that can be posted.
Musk fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. He had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.
Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter's San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, the sources added.
He has said he plans to cut staff jobs as well, leaving Twitter's 7,500 employees fretting about their future. He also said on Thursday he did not buy Twitter to make more money but "to try to help humanity, whom I love."
The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc. and self-described free speech absolutist has, however, also said he wants to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division.
"Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" Musk said in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.
Other goals include wanting to "defeat" spam bots on Twitter and make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.
Musk also said in May he would reverse the ban on Donald Trump, who was removed after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The former U.S. president has said he won't return to the platform and has instead launched his own social media app, Truth Social.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The deal's road began on April 4, when Musk disclosed a 9.2% Twitter stake, becoming the company's largest shareholder.
The world's richest person then agreed to join Twitter's board, only to balk at the last minute and offer to buy the company instead for $54.20 per share, an offer that Twitter thought might be another of Musk's cannabis jokes.
The acrimony resulted in Musk telling Twitter on July 8 he was terminating the deal. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the acquisition.
On Oct. 4, just as Musk was set to be deposed by Twitter's lawyers, he performed another U-turn, offering to complete the deal as promised. He managed to do that, just one day ahead of a deadline given by a judge to avoid going to trial.
Musk has indicated he sees Twitter as a foundation for creating a "super app" that offers everything from money transfers to shopping and ride-hailing.
But Twitter is struggling to engage its most active users who are vital to the business. These "heavy tweeters" account for less than 10% of monthly overall users but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue.
The EU official overseeing internet regulation on Friday warned new Twitter boss Elon Musk the social media giant must play by the bloc's rules in Europe.
"In Europe, the bird will fly by our (EU) rules," EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted, in response to Musk writing that "the bird is freed".
The 27-nation bloc is imposing landmark legislation aimed at reining in the power of US tech giants and forcing them to more closely screen illegal or harmful online content.