Elon Musk To Become Temporary Twitter CEO After Deal Closes

Chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX; Elon Musk, is expected to take over as the temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months once his $44 billion deal to take over the social media platform is complete, according to CNBC’s, David Faber.

An SEC filing on Thursday revealed Musk secured approximately $7.14 billion in equity commitments from friends and other investors to buy Twitter. Faber said Musk handpicked the investors. Commitments range from $1 billion from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison to $5 million from Honeycomb Asset Management, which invested in SpaceX. Faber added that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey may back it, and Musk is talking to him about the possibility of contributing shares immediately or before the closing of the merger.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has only led the company for a few months, after taking over the helm from Dorsey last November, Until now, there hadn’t been much discussion about whether Musk’s takeover of the company would lead to a leadership shakeup.

Agrawal told employees during a company-wide town hall meeting last month that the future of Twitter is uncertain under Musk, according to Reuters.

“Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” Agrawal reportedly said when asked whether the company may allow former US President Donald Trump to return to the platform when Musk takes over.

Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter last year.

Musk’s acquisition of Twitter comes at a key time for the company. Agrawal has said he would focus on growing Twitter’s daily active user base and bringing new products to customers. In the company’s latest earnings report, Twitter said it hit 229 million monetizable daily active users, a 15.9 percent increase from the same period last year.

The Twitter takeover is expected to close later in 2022.