Musk closes $44 billion Twitter deal

Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion and fires its top brass

Twitter is losing money and its active user base doesn’t stand up to any comparison. Elon Musk has just bought it for $44 billion. Both statements are true, and neither cancels out the other—which is precisely what makes the deal more than a simple corporate move. The closing of the agreement, first reported by U.S. financial media, brought the immediate firing of the CEO, the CFO and the top executive for legal policy, trust and safety. No transition. No prior notice.

How the deal got done—and who got pushed out

The formalization came after months of announcements and reversals. Musk takes control of a publicly traded company that, from now on, answers to a single owner. His first move was to dispense with the top brass. His second is unknown: some reports speak of cutting up to 75% of staff, but other sources question it. There is also no official confirmation about accounts banned for life; U.S. media speculate about the return of some, including that of former President Donald Trump, according to published reports.

The sink, “the bird is freed” and 600,000 likes

His arrival at headquarters carrying a sink and the phrase “let that sink in” worked as a statement of intent. The pun is double: the sink and “let that sink in.” Then came “the bird is freed” and an open letter to advertisers. One of those messages topped 600,000 likes, and that figure is itself the best argument for those who defend the network’s relevance: what matters here is not the number of registered users, but who drives the conversation.

Why does Twitter matter if almost no one uses it?

It is the question running through everything else. A chart comparing active users leaves Twitter far below Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, and that data point is used to argue that the platform has been irrelevant for years. Against it, the opposite argument: governments, official bodies, athletes and media use it as a channel for announcements and positioning. The temporary disappearance of a U.S. president’s account made news around the world, and a website without traffic doesn’t achieve that.

The underlying criticism is not technical but cultural. Those who argue the network is overvalued add that its real audience is an ecosystem of columnists, public officials and institutional accounts that quote each other and generate headlines that other media then pick up. Those who argue the opposite respond that this ecosystem is precisely where the opinion that later filters down to everyone else is manufactured. Here, bluntly, people talk about cognitive warfare.

The plan attributed to him: WeChat and the x.com domain

The most repeated hypothesis is that Musk wants to turn the network into an all-in-one app, in the style of WeChat, the Chinese app that combines messaging, payments, banking and services. The figure used to size it up, and cited in the thread: WeChat recorded a net profit of 20,722 million euros in 2020. For that shift, Musk has an asset he has held for years: the x.com domain.

Who is putting up the money and with what guarantees

The purchase was leveraged with loans from several international banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, Credit Suisse, BNP, Mizuho and SocGen. The debt is backed by a package of Tesla shares valued at $62.5 billion, which ties the deal’s risk to the carmaker’s share price. The thesis circulating is that these investors are not buying profitability, but influence.

The valuation comparison serves as a reference: Facebook is around 400 billion, while Twitter is credited with around 40 billion, with some lowering that figure to 25 billion. The rest is a bet on a business that has gone almost two decades without clear results.

If the buyers’ diagnosis is correct, Twitter will be worth what someone is willing to pay to influence, not what it earns. If they are wrong, it will have been a very expensive way to buy noise. For now, the bird is free and the doubt remains intact.