He came with a sink.

Elon Musk tweeted a video Wednesday of himself entering Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, holding a sink.

"Let that sink in," he wrote, a play on words, because that can be translated as "Be aware of that" as well as "Let the sink in".

The CEO of the electric car manufacturer Tesla also changed his Twitter profile and describes himself there as "Chief Twit", he gave the Twitter headquarters as the location.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

  • Follow I follow

With his typical sense of humour, the richest person in the world has signaled that after a long saga he will soon be the master of the house at Twitter and will buy the company for 44 billion dollars.

He also tweeted that he met "a lot of cool people" on Twitter on Wednesday.

Musk faced until Friday to finalize the transaction or face a court case.

American media had previously reported that everything was aimed at completing the takeover on time.

The Twitter workforce has been told that there will be a staff meeting with Musk on Friday.

The back and forth of Musk

On Thursday, Musk already described his role as Twitter owner as fact.

He tweeted a lengthy post about "why I bought Twitter" and addressed it to "dear advertisers."

He said he didn't do it because he wanted to make more money or because it was easy.

He did it "to help humanity that I love".

It is "important for the future of civilization" to have a digital public space where many different beliefs can be debated.

Musk has often described the Twitter acquisition in recent months as some kind of campaign for free speech, and has hinted that user guidelines would be relaxed under him.

He has also said he would lift the current Twitter ban on former US President Donald Trump.

This has raised concerns that Twitter may become a more extreme platform under him and advertisers may turn away.

His letter on Thursday was apparently aimed at reassuring advertisers.

He said Twitter can't "become a hell where anything goes."

Twitter has the ambition to become “the most respected advertising platform in the world”.

There is a lot of unease among the Twitter workforce over the prospective owner.

The Washington Post reported last week that Musk had spoken to potential investors about plans to cut almost 75 percent of all jobs.

Only a little more than 2,000 of the last 7,500 employees would remain.

Apparently Musk was trying to reassure his future colleagues.

Bloomberg news agency said he told employees on Wednesday he had no plans to cut three-quarters of the jobs.

process averted

Musk agreed to take over Twitter in April, but after just a few weeks he raised doubts about the transaction.

In July, he canceled the acquisition and accused Twitter of violating clauses in the purchase agreement.

He cited his concern about "spam" or "fake" Twitter accounts that aren't owned by real users.

Twitter says their share of published user numbers is less than 5 percent, Musk claims it could be significantly more.

Twitter immediately sued Musk after announcing his withdrawal, accusing him of breach of contract.

The company said Musk was seeking an "escape route" from the contract because the capital markets environment had deteriorated and his wealth had dwindled.

The legal battle appeared to be headed for a trial, but three weeks ago Musk abruptly changed his mind and said he wanted to buy Twitter after all at the originally agreed price.

A few days ago, when presenting Tesla's quarterly figures, Musk admitted that from today's perspective he would pay an inflated purchase price for Twitter.