Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Segal are among executives planning to exit Twitter as Elon Musk completes his $44 billion deal to take over Twitter, reports said. CNBC reported that Parag and Ned Segal left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning. Others who are also leaving include Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust, Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012, Bloomberg reported quoting people familiar with the matter.
‘Chief Twit’ Elon Musk visits Twitter HQ as takeover deadline looms | Watch
According to the New York Times, the top officials, including Parag Agrawal, were fired as soon as the deal was complete. At least one of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter’s office, the NYT report said.
Parag Agrawal became the CEO of Twitter in November following the resignation of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Agrawal has been working with Twitter for almost a decade and was the chief technology officer before stepping into the CEO role.
Elon Musk versus Parag Agrawal
The takeover of the social media platform by the world’s richest person concludes a long legal battle and months-long enmity between Elon Musk and former Twitter leadership. Elon Musk and Parag Agrawal had much bad blood between them and none of it was hidden from the public eye as the lawsuit made their acrimonious message exchanges public. “I don’t have confidence in management,” Musk said in one early filing about the deal. “You are free to tweet ‘is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter,” Parag Agrawal wrote, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.”
“What did you get done this week?” Elon Musk took a public swipe at Parag and also was in two minds about the deal as he wrote, “I’m not joining the board this is a waste of time.”
Elon Musk’s visit to Twitter headquarters, message to advertisers
A day before the deal was complete, Elon Musk visited the Twitter headquarters and changed his bio to ‘Chief Twit’. Then he posted a message for Twitter advertisers in which he said he acquired Twitter because the future of civilisation must have a “common digital town square”. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society”.
“I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love,” Elon Musk wrote.
What is Parag Agrawal’s deal?
Agrawal won’t be leaving empty-handed. As part of the deal, the CEO will vest 100% of his unvested equity awards, according to a filing. Research firm Equilar estimated that means he’ll make an estimated $42 million, Reuters reported.
(With inputs from agencies)
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