- Peter Hoskins
- Business Correspondent
Updated 44 minutes ago
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, said his proposed takeover of Twitter is temporarily suspended.
And Musk posted a tweet in which he said he was still waiting for details that the fake accounts on the platform were less than five percent.
Last month, Twitter’s board of directors approved a $44 billion offer from the head of Tesla to take over the company.
Musk himself is an active Twitter user, and has more than ninety-two million followers. Musk said one of his priorities is to remove spam bots from the platform.
Twitter confirmed that two of its managers are leaving, in one of the largest restructurings since Musk reached an agreement to acquire the company.
The two CEOs were driving Twitter’s consumption and revenue operations.
Starting this week, the company has also halted most hiring, except for “critical roles at work”.
A Twitter spokesperson told the BBC: “We are eliminating non-labor costs to ensure we are responsible and efficient.”
Cayvonne Bikbor, who led Twitter’s consumer division, and Bruce Flack, who oversaw its revenue division, tweeted on Thursday that it was not their decision to leave.
Bikor said he is now on paternity leave and was disappointed following Parag, who “wanted to take the team in a different direction”, asked him to leave.
Falk tweeted, “I’ll make it clear that I, too, were fired by (Brague)”. But it appears that Falk later deleted the tweet. His Twitter bio now says he is “unemployed”.
Jay Sullivan, who led the consumption division during Pickpoor’s leave, will become permanent head of the division. He will also oversee the revenue department until a new manager is appointed.
Will Trump return to Twitter?
This week, Musk said he would rescind former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter ban if the company’s acquisition was successful.
“I’m going to revoke the permanent ban, but I don’t have Twitter yet, so you can’t say that’s something that will happen for sure,” Musk said on Tuesday.
He tweeted on Thursday: “Although I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be brought back to Twitter.”
Trump said he does not want to return to Twitter, but aims instead to build his own TruthSocial platform.
Twitter had imposed a permanent ban on Trump in January 2021 due to what it described at the time as “the risk of inciting more violence” following the storming of the US Capitol.
Trump has not yet announced whether he will run for president once more in 2024, following failing to win a second term in 2020.
