Elon Musk has completed his $44bn (£38bn) takeover of Twitter after months of toing and froing over the deal.
His first move was to fire the social media company’s top leadership, which he accused of misleading him over the number of spam accounts on the platform.
Musk sacked Twitter’s chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to reports.
It has also been claimed Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out of the building.
Musk later tweeted “the bird is freed” in a nod to the deal being completed.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder was given a deadline of 28 October to close the deal to avoid going to trial, after the social media company sued him for trying to rip up his original offer made back in April.
Musk and Twitter were due in court on 17 October, but it was pushed back after the world’s richest man said he would go through with the purchase after all.
Earlier this week, Musk posted a bizarre video of himself entering Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a sink alongside the message: “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in”.
Musk, who has updated his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit”, said on Thursday he did not buy the social media platform to make more money but “to try to help humanity, whom I love.”