Twitter has fired two of its top executives in the wake of ongoing controversy surrounding Elon Musk's planned buyout of the company.

On Thursday, Twitter general manager Kayvon Beykpour announced that he was leaving the company after seven years, claiming that CEO Parag Agrawal "asked me to leave after letting me know he wants to take the team in a different direction".

"I hope and expect that Twitter's best days are still ahead of it ...with the right nurturing and stewardship, that impact will only grow," Beykpour added.

Additionally, Twitter's revenue and product lead Bruce Falck was also fired. Likewise, Falck responded via Twitter where he thanked his former colleagues and added that he "can't wait" to see what the company builds.

Agarwal tackled the moves in a series of tweets on Thursday, where he attempted to address the issue of why a "lame-duck CEO would make these changes" if the company is on the cusp of being acquired by Musk.

"While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what's right for Twitter. I'm accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day," Agrawal said. 

"Regardless of the company's future ownership, we're here improving Twitter as a product and business for customers, partners, shareholders, and all of you."

Read:Elon Musk plans to reverse Donald Trump's permanent ban on Twitter

Meanwhile Musk alerted his followers on Sunday with news that "Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100! This actually happened."

Musk, in a tweet, had previously linked to a story byReuters which said Twitter estimated that fake or spam accounts made up fewer than 5% of its monetisable daily active users during the first quarter.

The billionaire followed this up by noting that the Twitter deal was "temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users", before claiming in a follow-up tweet that he was still committed to the acquisition.

Musk then announced how his team would evaluate the estimate, claiming that they would compile a "random sample of 100 followers" before inviting others "to repeat the same process and see what they discover".

Related Coverage

• Musk's vague ideas of free speech and Tesla ambition could spell doom for India's minorities
• Musk's Twitter goal of authenticating all users is good for ending bots but bad for humans
• Elon Musk explains what he wants to change about Twitter
• Why we need more than one Twitter
• Forget the algorithm: Here's what really makes Twitter unique
• No, Elon, Twitter will never be a platform for 'Free Speech'