Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, making him the social media giant’s “sole director” as it plans to “lay off a quarter of the workforce.”
A securities filing filed Monday states that all previous board members are no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.”
The Tesla CEO, who has given himself the title of ‘Chief Twit’, fired four executives shortly after taking office, who were owed millions under the merger deal.
Former CEO Parag Agrawal had been set to receive up to $60 million alone, but Musk fired them all ‘for cause’, though the motives behind the move are unclear.
The layoffs may void the pay deal, but executives are ‘deliberating’ their next steps.
Agrawal and Chairman Bret Taylor are no longer on the board of directors after the $44 billion acquisition of Musk.
Martha Lane Fox, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou were also removed from their posts following SpaceX chief’s review.
A securities filing filed Monday states that all previous board members are no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.”
Chairman Bret Taylor has seen his role dissolved, with Elon Musk becoming the ‘sole director’ of the social media giant.
Martha Lane Fox, left, and Omid Kordestani, right, have been removed from their roles on Twitter’s board of directors.
In addition to firing Agrawal, Musk also fired chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett.
It comes as Twitter’s new CEO reportedly issued an ultimatum to the social media platform’s engineers, telling them to revamp Twitter’s verification system in less than a fortnight or face dismissal.
Famed attorney Alex Spiro, Musk’s longtime legal representative, led the talks about the job cuts, according to the Washington Post.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss immediately fired the social media company’s CEO, CFO, legal director and general counsel when he took over Thursday.
The first round of layoffs will affect almost every department and is expected to specifically affect sales, products, engineering, legal, trust and safety in the coming days, the Post’s source said.
Twitter had more than 7,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to a regulatory document, with a quarter of the workforce numbering nearly 2,000 employees.
Musk denied a New York Times report that Twitter employees were being fired on a date before November 1, which is tomorrow, to avoid stock grants due that day.
Elon Musk plans to let a quarter of the workforce go to social media giant Twitter in his first round of layoffs after acquiring the company in a multibillion-dollar acquisition last week.
Previously, Musk hinted that he considered the New York Times to be a fake news outlet.
After engineers, Twitter’s highest-paid employees work in sales, with several earning more than $300,000.
Musk also denied claims that he will fire employees before they receive their November 1 compensation in the form of stock grants.
He responded to claims made by ProPublica Deputy Editorial Director Eric Umansky by saying “this is false.”
According to a report by The Verge, Musk wants to launch a pay-per-play verification system where verified users are charged $20 per month.
The problem is that the engineers have until November 7 to release the schematic or face being fired. Employees were only informed of the project on October 30.
The Verge report says that the price of verification is subject to change. The price will also cover other features not specified so far.
Musk is pictured with Twitter employees in the office on the day of the acquisition.
Responding to ProPublica’s Eric Umansky tweeting the Times story, Musk simply wrote, “This is false.”
Musk’s longtime ally David Sacks is reportedly working with the Tesla CEO as a “staff software engineer.”
Ever since Musk first offered to buy Twitter, the world’s richest man has made it clear that he plans to shake things up at the social media giant.
Hours before The Verge report surfaced, Musk tweeted: “The entire verification process is being revamped right now.”
Previously, Casey Newton of the tech website Platformer reported that Twitter was inclined to ask verified users to pay for the privilege.
DailyMail.com has asked Twitter for a comment on this story.
Both David Sacks and Jason Calacanis have appeared in a company directory over the weekend and are understood to have the titles ‘staff software engineer’.
Musk’s official title is CEO, although he has publicly referred to himself as ‘Chief Twit’
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk shared a link to a now-deleted article suggesting that Paul Pelosi left a gay bar with David DePape early Friday before he was allegedly attacked with a hammer.
Musk’s official title is CEO, although he has publicly referred to himself as ‘Chief Twit’.
On Sunday, Musk took aim at ad lawyers for Twitter’s board of directors, claiming they “deliberately concealed evidence from the court,” referring to his legal bid to stop the takeover.
Sriram Krishnan, another longtime Musk associate, also tweeted that he was helping the deal by investing $400 million from cryptocurrency firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Musk further took aim at the New York Post by tweeting a screenshot of a NYTimes.com headline accusing it of posting a link to a false story about the assault on Paul Pelosi.
The headline read: “Elon Musk, in a tweet, shares a link to a site known for publishing fake news.”
He joked, “This is fake: I *didn’t* tweet a link to the New York Times.”
Musk earlier deleted a tweet that suggested Paul Pelosi’s attacker was a gay prostitute he met on a night out.
