Elon Musk closes Twitter deal: What's next?

Elon Musk officially closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on Thursday evening. Under the agreement, Musk is taking the social media giant private at $54.20 per share.

"The easy part for Musk was buying Twitter, the difficult part and Everest-like uphill battle looking ahead will be fixing this troubled asset," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. "The $44 billion price tag for Twitter will go down as one of the most overpaid tech acquisitions in the history of M&A deals on the Street in our opinion."

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The New York Stock Exchange confirmed in a notice on its website that Twitter will be suspended from trading on Friday. Bloomberg News reported that Musk could potentially take Twitter public again within three to five years, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Here is a FOX Business roundup of what Twitter's priorities may look like under Musk's ownership.

MUSK TELLS ADVERTISERS TWITTER WILL NOT BECOME ‘FREE-FOR-ALL HELLSCAPE’

Ensuring free speech

In April, Musk said that he believes free speech is "the bedrock of a functioning democracy" and that Twitter is "the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated."

He reiterated that statement in a letter to advertisers on Thursday, but emphasized that Twitter "obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" 

"In addition to adhering to our laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences," Musk added. 

When it comes to permanent bans on Twitter, Musk has said that he believes they should be "extremely rare" and primarily reserved for spam or fake accounts.

The billionaire has previously said he intends to reverse the permanent ban that was placed on former President Donald Trump. However, Trump told FOX Business' Stuart Varney earlier this year that he has no plans to rejoin Twitter. Instead, he said he would remain focused on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

ELON MUSK VISITS TWITTER HEADQUARTERS AHEAD OF $44B ACQUISITION DEADLINE

Defeating spam and fake accounts, open sourcing Twitter's algorithm, new features

Musk wants to improve Twitter by enhancing the product with new features, making its algorithm open source so that anyone can review changes to its code, defeating spambots and authenticating all humans.

In April, Musk proposed a series of changes to Twitter's Blue subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin. At the time, he also proposed end-to-end encryption to protect users' direct messages on Twitter.

In September, Twitter began internally testing a long-awaited edit button. The move came months after Musk released a poll in April asking his Twitter followers if they would want it.

Last week, Musk said he has a plan to tackle spam and fake accounts on the platform in response to a tweet from Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, but has not disclosed details. 

Twitter maintains that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its total monetizable daily active users. However, Musk has previously speculated that the total could potentially be at least 20% of all users.

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Layoffs

A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to FOX Business that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's longtime head of legal, policy and trust, have all been fired. 

The executive shake-up follows a report by the Washington Post earlier this month that Musk plans to cut 75% of Twitter's workforce, a move that would reduce the company's staffing from about 7,500 to around 2,000 employees. Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that Musk has denied the 75% figure. 

According to Time, an undisclosed number of Twitter employees circulated an open letter to Musk and the company's board of directors, warning that a 75% staff cut would hurt its ability to serve the public conversation.

"A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation," the letter reportedly states.

The letter lists employee demands, including preserving the company's current headcount and benefits; establishing fair severance policies for all workers before and after a change in ownership; not discriminating against workers based on their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or political beliefs; providing safety for workers on visas; and giving transparent, prompt and thoughtful communication around working conditions.

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The creation of X, an ‘everything app’

Musk has said that the purchase of Twitter could accelerate the creation of X, an "everything app" by three to five years. 

X.com was initially an online bank that Musk co-founded in 1999. It went on to merge with software company Confinity Inc. a year later and changed its name to PayPal. Online marketplace eBay bought the electronic payments provider for $1.5 billion in 2002 and, in 2015, PayPal was spun off into an independent company. In 2017, Musk bought the X.com domain name and relaunched the site. 

At a town hall with Twitter employees in June, Musk said he wants Twitter to eventually reach 1 billion users and that he planned to replicate WeChat's model, noting that people in China "basically live" on the platform.

"If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success," he said at the time.