Hillicon Valley — Musk dissolves Twitter’s board

Elon Musk is now the sole director of Twitter after dissolving the board as part of the $44 billion acquisition, the company said in a securities filing Monday.  

In more Twitter news, a Senate Democrat is calling for a committee to probe Saudi Arabian investors in the company following Musk’s takeover. We’ll also look at possible plans to charge for verified accounts on the platform.

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare.

Musk becomes the sole director at Twitter

Elon Musk has been named sole director of Twitter, dissolving the board in place before he completed his $44 billion acquisition of the company, the social media platform said in a securities filing on Monday.

• Musk became the sole director of the company “in accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement,” the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission.
  
• Twitter’s board members Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou will no longer serve on the board, the company said.  

The disbanding of the board is among the string of changes the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO put in place after assuming ownership of the company last week, concluding a six-month process. 

Read more here.

Murphy seeks probe of Musk’s Twitter deal

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called on Monday for a Committee on Foreign Investment investigation into Saudi Arabian investors in Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover.

“Today I am requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to conduct an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Twitter,” Murphy wrote.

• The tweet by Murphy came days after Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud released a statement on behalf of Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) announcing the corporation’s massive investment in Twitter.
  
• The statement broadcast the rollover of KHC and Prince Al Waleed’s combined 34,948,975 shares to “the ‘New’ Twitter, led by Elon Musk.” 

Read more here. 

BLUE CHECK PRICE CHECK 

In one of his first moves at Twitter, Elon Musk is moving to charge users $20 per month to be verified on the social media platform, The Verge reported.

• Twitter employees have until Nov. 7 to launch the new subscription feature, or they will be fired, Musk reportedly told the staff on Sunday.
  
• Users who are already verified will have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmarks. 

Musk tweeted on Sunday that “the whole verification process is being revamped right now.” 

The reported move to charge for blue checkmarks drew widespread criticism among users.

Read more here.  

INSTAGRAM ISSUES

Instagram officials are working on fixing an issue that prevented some users from logging into their accounts Monday.

Some Instagram users attempting to login into their accounts reported receiving messages stating that their accounts had been suspended for violating community guidelines. 

A spike in users reporting being locked out of their Instagram accounts peaked at 10 a.m. Monday, with more than 7,600 problem reports submitted on the platform, according to downdetector.com, a site that tracks real-time service outages. 

Read more here.  

👾 BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Time for the United States to extend SpaceX’s Starlink to Russia 

Notable links from around the web: 

Lyft money saved a California climate measure. It could kill it too. (Protocol / Issie Lapowsky) 

Scoop: Musk team working to reboot Vine this year (Axios / Sara Fischer and Dan Primack)  

Letters, Tweets, TV: How Midterm Disinformation Has Washed Over Pennsylvania (The New York Times / Steven Lee Myers) 

Spy agency embraces meme culture and the internet is here for it (CyberScoop / Suzanne Smalley) 

🐕 Lighter click: Happy pets in costumes day to all who celebrate  

One more thing: Musk’s first moves

Elon Musk wasted no time beginning to remodel Twitter after closing his deal to acquire the company Thursday night, quickly cutting key staff, doubling down on plans to lift lifelong bans and previewing plans for a council to determine content decisions.  

The changes he’s made so far confirmed suspicions critics had about the direction the billionaire space and auto executive, known for being a Twitter troll himself, would take the company in, and are adding fuel to the chorus of critics worried Musk’s reign at Twitter will allow misinformation and hate speech to thrive on the platform. 

Musk’s decision to take Twitter private will also allow him to transform the platform — including its content moderation policies and financial priorities — with less oversight from regulators and without having to publicly disclose updates every few months to show how the company is performing. 

Read more here. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages and explore more newsletters here. We’ll see you tomorrow.