Highlights
- Not just Parag Agrawal, other top executives who were fired by Musk will also receive payouts
- All the top four executives will be paid millions of dollars by the social media platform
- The payout to Parag Agrawal is largely due "to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing"
Parag Agrawal, who was ousted by billionaire Elon Musk after the latter took over Twitter in a $44 billion takeover deal, is set to get millions of dollars as the payout.
Not just Parag Agrawal, but other top executives who were fired by Elon Musk will also receive millions of dollars in the payout.
A total of $88 million will be given out to Twitter's top executives who have been fired.
According to the details, the former Indian-origin CEO is set to receive the largest payout of $38.7 million, largely due "to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing".
Twitter's chief financial officer Ned Segal, is set to receive $25.4 million and Vijaya Gadde, the chief legal officer, will be richer by $12.5 million after being fired.
Sarah Personette, the chief customer officer, would get $11.2 million.
Parag Agrawal, 38, was appointed Twitter CEO in November last year after the social media site’s co-founder Jack Dorsey had stepped down.
An IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus, Agrawal joined Twitter over a decade ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees at the company.
Musk also “singled out” Gadde, 48, “criticising her for her role in content moderation decisions at the company”, it added.
As the Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump was permanently suspended in January last year, Hyderabad-born Gadde was at the forefront of this dramatic decision undertaken within days of the attempted insurrection by pro-Trump supporters at the US Capitol.
Musk is expected to reorganise Twitter and cut the workforce by a massive margin.
Reports earlier mentioned that Musk will fire 75 per cent, or 5,600 employees, from the Twitter staff globally.
However, the billionaire told Twitter employees during his visit to its headquarters that he is not going to lay off 75 per cent of the workforce when he takes over the micro-blogging platform.
Earlier, Musk casually mentioned laying off Twitter staff in his tweets, without mentioning any figure.
Meanwhile, Twitter employees are still anxious about the expected layoffs as part of the takeover. They had written an open letter to the board of directors and Musk, criticising his plans to lay off 75 per cent of the workforce.
Twitter's battle with Elon Musk
After initially agreeing to buy the company in April, Musk spent months attempting to get out of the deal, first citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform and later allegations raised by a company whistleblower.
When Musk said he was terminating the deal, Twitter sued the billionaire, alleging he “refuses to honour his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
Earlier in October, Musk said he wanted to pursue his acquisition of Twitter at the original price of USD 54.20 a share if the social messaging service dropped its litigation.
Twitter’s lawyers said that the Tesla CEO’s “proposal is an invitation to further mischief and delay.”
On Thursday, Musk wrote a message to reassure advertisers that social messaging services wouldn’t devolve into “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said in the message.
“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.”
Also Read | Elon Musk sent warning text to Parag Agrawal over Twitter deal, say reports
