Elon Musk Completes Twitter Takeover, Fires Executives Parag Agarwal, Vijaya Gadde, Ned Segal After Taking Charge
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO finishes his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter Inc.,CEO of Twitter Inc Parag Agrawal is one of the executives expected to leave, according to the sources familiar with the matter.
Also leaving are Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017; and Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012, according to people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public.
In November, Agrawal took over as CEO when co-founder Jack Dorsey abruptly announced his resignation. Agrawal has been with Twitter for ten years, most recently serving as its chief technical officer. Musk’s entry as a significant stakeholder and an outspoken critic of the company’s current leadership, however, quickly ended Agrawal’s tenure as CEO.
Musk’s arrival made it obvious that Agrawal was not likely to be retained in his position. In an early filing on the deal, Musk stated, “I don’t have confidence in management,” and the two executives traded public jabs. In May, Musk responded with a poop emoji to a thread on Twitter started by Agrawal defending the company’s user metrics.
The two men engaged in a heated debate early on in the negotiation process after Musk queried his followers about whether Twitter was “dying” in text messages that were made public as part of the lawsuit.
Agrawal confronted him via text. “You are free to tweet ‘is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter,” he wrote on April 9, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.” Musk fired back, “What did you get done this week?” And then: “I’m not joining the board, this is a waste of time.”
Musk made fun of Agrawal for being on vacation in Hawaii during agreement discussions the next week in messages to a buddy. “Shouldn’t he be in a war room right now?!?” investor Jason Calacanis messaged Musk. “Does doing occasional zoom calls while drinking fruity cocktails at the Four Seasons count?” Musk replied.
Musk, a dependable friend of Jack Dorsey’s, and Agrawal’s reconciliation efforts after the deal was announced also failed. Fortunately, it became apparent that you can’t collaborate, following a conference call, Dorsey texted Musk. “That was clarifying.”
Agrawal won’t be going away without anything. According to a document, the CEO’s unvested equity rewards will fully vest as part of the agreement. According to research firm Equilar’s estimate, he will earn almost $42 million, according to Reuters.
Musk has promised to turn Twitter into a less-restrictive platform for free speech, a move he has said is “essential to a functioning democracy.”
Gadde experienced a wave of online harassment earlier this year when Musk openly criticised Twitter’s content-related choices. Following the assault on the Capitol by supporters of former US president Donald Trump in January 2021, the corporation permanently banned him.
Many people anticipate that Musk will reinstate Trump’s account and other users who have been suspended for violating policies on offensive or harmful content based on his comments before he bought the social media firm.