On April 25, Twitter announced that it had agreed to sell the company to entrepreneur Elon Musk for approximately $44 billion.
The news was cheered by some of the social media platform’s critics. When, on April 28, a Facebook post started to circulate declaring that Musk had just “F-I-R-E-D the entire Twitter board,” some users gloated.
“GOOD,” one account said. Another just posted multiple laughing while crying emojis. But others still were skeptical that this latest development was accurate.
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
We reached out to Twitter about the claim but did not immediately hear back.
But Musk doesn’t own Twitter yet. The deal won’t be final until shareholders vote to approve it. Twitter hasn’t said when that vote will take place, but there’s some speculation it could happen at the company’s annual meeting on May 25.
On April 18, before the board agreed to sell Twitter, Musk tweeted that director salaries “will be $0 if my bid succeeds,” saving approximately $3 million annually.
But it’s not accurate that Musk just fired the board.
We rate that claim False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
