U.S. stocks softened on Tuesday, closing in negative territory as investors began the holiday-shortened week by taking profits in the wake of a sustained rally amid signs of weakening global demand.

Twitter Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Wednesday that towards the end of 2023 would be "good timing" to find someone else to run Twitter, when he expects the social media platform to be stable.

A U.S. jury on Friday found Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and his company were not liable for misleading investors when Musk tweeted in 2018 that he had "funding secured" to take the electric car company private.

A judge set an Oct. 2 trial date.

Billionaire Elon Musk said he paid a visit to Twitter Inc's headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday, ahead of a court-ordered deadline to close his $44 billion deal for the social media platform.

Alibaba Group is cutting over a third of staff in its in-house deals team, four people with knowledge of the matter said, after Beijing's sweeping regulatory crackdown sharply slowed the Chinese e-commerce behemoth's dealmaking pace.