Elon Musk told banks backing his proposed $44 billion Twitter takeover he has a new CEO lined up for the social network, Reuters reported Friday, but it’s still unclear who it’ll be. Parag Agrawal, who took over from co-founder Jack Dorsey last November, will apparently stay until the sale is completed.
The Tesla boss also said he’d reign in executive and board pay, in addition to figuring out new ways to monetize tweets, according to Reuters, which cited anonymous sources.
Twitter accepted Musk’s offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share earlier this week, but the deal still requires shareholder and regulatory approval. Musk sold around $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock in the days since the deal, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, as previously reported by CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.
During his calls with the banks, he also highlighted the need for influencers and celebrities to be more active on Twitter, Bloomberg reported. In a tweet in early April, he noted that many of the top accounts rarely post — musician Taylor Swift has more than 90 million followers, but hasn’t tweeted since January.
Musk also told banks there may be job cuts, but didn’t mention specific departments or positions, according to Bloomberg.
Musk regularly tweets his ideas for fixing the site to his nearly 89 million followers, and sometimes deletes them afterwards. While talking to banks, he apparently suggested charging websites to quote or embed a tweet from verified Twitter profiles so the company can make money when they go viral.
In tweets that he sent and later deleted, he suggested cutting the price of the Twitter Blue premium subscription service and said he wants to reduce Twitter’s dependence on advertising, Reuters noted.
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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