Billionaire Elon Musk fired the entire board of directors at Twitter in one of his first orders of business since he took over the social media giant and one of the board members who was shown the door is a Quebec executive.
Montreal-born Patrick Pichette was the chair of Twitter's board from 2020 until he was replaced by Bret Taylor in 2021. Since then, Pichette remained on the board until it was dissolved by Musk since the US$44-billion Twitter takeover last Thursday.
Musk, the world's richest man, fired the entire board and made himself the sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities Exchange Commission.
Pichette did not respond to a request for comment from CTV News Monday afternoon.
On Twitter, he congratulated the company's former chief financial officer, Ned Segal, writing in a post last Friday that he leaves behind an "amazing legacy."
Pichette has decades of experience as an executive in the business and tech worlds. He holds a master's degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University in 1989 and a bachelor of arts in Business Administration from Université du Québec à Montréal in 1987.
Before joining Twitter, he served as chief financial officer at Google from 2008 to 2015. In February 2022, he was appointed lead independent chair of Lightspeed POS Inc. and is a partner at Inovia Capital, a Montreal-based venture capital firm.
Pichette first joined the Twitter board of directors in 2017.
Musk appears to be testing the waters as the social media company's new owner, including revamping the verification process that puts blue check marks next to users' accounts that have been verified to be authentic. Media reports said he might force verified users to pay a monthly subscription to keep the verified badge that has historically been free.
On Friday, meanwhile, billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined US$1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company's largest shareholder after Musk. The news raised concerns among some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.
Murphy tweeted that he is requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment -- which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers -- to investigate the national security implications of the kingdom's investment in Twitter.
Immediately after closing the deal last week to buy Twitter, Musk fired multiple executives at the company, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde.
With files from The Associated Press
