Elon Musk has taken ownership of Twitter Inc TWTR-N with brutal efficiency, firing top executives but providing little clarity over how he will achieve the ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.

“The bird is freed,” he tweeted after he completed his $44-billion acquisition on Thursday, referencing Twitter’s bird logo in an apparent nod to his desire to see the company have fewer limits on content that can be posted.

The CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc and self-described free speech absolutist has, however, also said he wants to prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division.

Other goals include wanting to “defeat” spam bots on Twitter and make the algorithms that determine how content is presented to its users publicly available.

Yet Musk has not offered details on how he will achieve all this and who will run the company. He has said he plans to cut jobs, leaving Twitter’s 7,500 employees fretting about their future. He also said on Thursday he did not buy Twitter to make more money but “to try to help humanity whom I love.”

Less that 10 per cent of 266 Twitter employees who participated in a poll on messaging app Blindly expected to still have their jobs in three months. Blind allows employees to air grievances anonymously after they sign up with corporate emails.

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover: a timeline

Musk fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. He had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, the sources added.

Musk, who also runs rocket company SpaceX, plans to become Twitter’s interim CEO according to a person familiar with the matter and following an earlier report by Reuters. Musk also plans to scrap permanent bans on users, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Twitter, Musk and the executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Before closing the deal, Musk walked into Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday with a big grin and a porcelain sink, subsequently tweeting “let that sink in.” He changed his Twitter profile description to “Chief Twit.”

Musk said in May he would reverse Twitter’s ban on Donald Trump, who’s account was removed after the attack on the US Capitol. A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but the former US president previously said he won’t return to the platform and has instead launched his own social media app, Truth Social.

Musk tried to calm Twitter employee fears that major layoffs are coming and assured advertisers that his past criticism of Twitter’s content moderation rules would not harm its appeal.

“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk said in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.

As news of the deal spread, some Twitter users were quick to flag their willingness to walk away.

“I will be happy to leave in a heartbeat if Musk, well, acts as we all expect him to,” said a user with the @mustlovedogsxo account.

European regulators also reiterated past warnings that, under Musk’s leadership, Twitter must still abide by the region’s Digital Services Act, which levies hefty fines on companies if they do not control illegal content.

“In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU rules,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton tweeted on Friday morning.

European Parliament lawmaker and civil rights proponent Patrick Breyer suggested people look for alternatives where privacy is a priority.

“Twitter already knows our personalities dangerously well due to its pervasive surveillance of our every click. Now this knowledge will be falling into Musk’s hands.”

Musk has indicated he sees Twitter as a foundation for creating a “super app” that offers everything from money transfers to shopping and ride-hailing.

But Twitter is struggling to engage its most active users who are vital to the business. These “heavy tweeters” account for less than 10 per cent of monthly overall users but generate 90 per cent of all tweets and half of global revenue.

Musk will face a challenge building revenue “given that the controversial opinions he appears to want to give more of a free rein to are often unpalatable to advertisers,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.

The deal’s road to fruition was full of twists and turns that sowed doubt over whether it would happen at all. It began on April 4, when Musk disclosed a 9.2 per cent Twitter stake, becoming the company’s largest shareholder.

The world’s richest person then agreed to join Twitter’s board, only to balk at the last minute and offer to buy the company instead for $54.20 per share.

Over the course of just one weekend later in April, the two sides reached a deal without Musk carrying out any due diligence on the company’s confidential information.

In the weeks that followed, Musk had second thoughts. He complained publicly about Twitter’s spam accounts and his lawyers then accused Twitter of not complying with his requests for information on the subject.

The acrimony resulted in Musk telling Twitter on July 8 he was terminating the deal. Four days later, Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the acquisition.

By then, the stock market had plunged on concerns about a potential recession. Twitter accused Musk of buyer’s remorse, arguing he wanted out of the deal because he thought he was overpaid. Most legal analysts thought Twitter would likely prevail in court.

On Oct. 4, Musk performs another U-turn, offering to complete the deal as promised. He managed to do that, just one day ahead of a deadline to avoid going to trial.

Twitter shares ended trade on Thursday up 0.3 per cent at $53.86, just under the agreed price. The stock will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

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Since the return of indoor dining in San Francisco, one of State Bird Provisions’ most endearing qualities has conspicuously been missing from its dining room — dim sum-style service. Now, the wait for those three-layered carts on wheels and gray, hand-held trays is finally over.

“Returning to dim sum style service is a return to our identity,” said Stuart Brioza, chef and co-owner of State Bird Provisions. “At this point, most of our team has yet to experience the buzz and energy of State Bird Provisions with the carts and trays in service. So it’s new, just like outdoor dining was a couple of years ago.”

State Bird Provisions opened in 2012 and received instant recognition for its food, but also for its “innovative format” and “uncommon” service style. While there is nothing uncommon about this style of service in China or dim sum restaurants across the world, State Bird Provisions was one of the first to bring the push-cart style dining experience to a white-owned, American restaurant.

For those who don’t know, dim sum-style service offers multiple options of small-bite foods cooked in a “pre-ordered” fashion so there is less delay. These dim sum carts are pushed around the dining room enticing customers with their many aromas and flavors.

State Bird Provisions is known for its cart and tray service style.

Allene T./Yelp

Most of the time, diners at Chinese dim sum restaurants will place a checkmark next to all of the items they want to try at the beginning of the meal. Various carts carry different items. Next, the waiters roll the carts to each table and place the selected items from that cart in the center of the table before the next cart comes around.

For example, one cart might be piled high with steaming baskets filled with siu mai, while another is solely dedicated to xiao long bao. As the carts roam around the restaurant like ghosts in a game of Pac-Man, the cart-pushers will serve your items as they pass your table. And if you ordered siu mai or xiao long bao or (most likely) both, now you can feel like Pac-Man and chomp mindlessly, but happily.

At State Bird Provisions, half of the menu is pushed around on carts, so when one arrives at your table, you can decide whether or not to try something familiar or something new. Some of the most popular dishes are the sourdough-sauerkraut pecorino and ricotta pancakes, the CA state bird with provisions and the peanut muscovado milk for dessert.

State Bird Provisions will return to the dim sum style service on May 4th, 2022.

Jen Lo / Special to SFGATE

After being closed for a year due to the pandemic, the restaurant reopened in 2021, but changed their concept to a more traditional style to meet the needs of changing landscape.

“The idea of ​​running dinner with the carts and trays during the past year wasn’t comfortable for our team or our guests,” Brioza told SFGATE. “We also found that we could make the same dishes and still be a dynamic restaurant — but the spirit of State Bird was missing.”

The return to its dim sum-style roots also signals a change for the kitchen team, as they pivot to new cooking methods and learn to pace orders accordingly.

“Everything is different,” Brioza said. “We are cooking in batches and changing our stance to an offensive role in getting food out to the guests versus waiting for orders to come to us.”

Executive chef Gabby Maeda agrees, and said bringing back dim sum-style service only adds to the overall experience at State Bird Provisions.

“The kitchen team has more responsibility, they are on their own station and must be self-motivated,” she said. “I’m excited for the kitchen to become reintegrated in service and connect with our guests in ways that they’ve not been these past two years.”

State Bird Provisions is located at 1529 Fillmore St., San Francisco. It’s open 5 to 10 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.

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