Sacked Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal To Get Nearly $50 mn Payout | Tech News

Sacked Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal To Get Nearly $50 mn Payout

Three of Twitter's top executives are poised to collect more than $100 million in severance and payouts.

By:BLOOMBERG
| Updated on: Oct 28 2022, 19:51 IST
As Elon Musk bullies Vijaya Gadde at Twitter, Parag Agrawal, Dick Costolo react
Parag Agrawal
1/5 Just a day after his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter was announced, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized Twitter’s way of working and targeted the company’s legal chief Vijaya Gadde through several tweets. (REUTERS)
Parag Agrawal
2/5 Musk criticized Twitter’s algorithm of blocking certain personalities on the social media platform and limiting the spread of information. However, it seems that the company’s CEO Parag Agrawal has his employees’ back. (REUTERS)
Parag Agrawal
3/5 Agrawal praised the work of his employees and appreciated them working hard despite the “noise”, referring to Musk’s tweets, albeit in a subtle manner. Musk’s tweets have had a public reaction, resulting in several racial slurs directed at Vijaya Gadde (REUTERS)
Parag Agrawal
4/5 Parag Agrawal tweeted, “I took this job to change Twitter for the better, course correct where we need to, and strengthen the service. Proud of our people who continue to do the work with focus and urgency despite the noise.” (AFP)
Parag Agrawal
5/5 Meanwhile, it seems that former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has also jumped to Vijaya Gadde’s defence. He replied to Musk’s tweet directly, “what's going on? You're making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats.” Costolo later tweeted that “Bullying is not leadership”. (REUTERS)
Parag Agrawal
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Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who stepped into the role less than a year ago, is eligible to receive roughly $50 mn. (REUTERS)

Three of Twitter Inc.'s top executives who were said to be fired after Elon Musk completed his takeover are poised to collect more than $100 million in severance and payouts of previously granted equity awards.

Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, who stepped into the role less than a year ago, is eligible to receive roughly $50 million, according to calculations by Bloomberg News. Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal, policy and trust, are in line for about $37 million and $17 million each, respectively.

The three and other major Twitter executives were among those to depart after Musk took the helm at the social media giant on Thursday, people familiar with the matter said. Their exits cap more than six months of public and legal wrangling that now have ended with Musk, the world's richest person, seizing the CEO job.

Like many top leaders at big public companies, Agrawal and his lieutenants were entitled to severance equal to a year's salary and cash-outs of unvested equity awards if Twitter was bought and they lost their jobs in the process, according to the terms of the company's severance policy. Twitter must also cover their health insurance premiums for a year, amounting to about $31,000 each.

Critics often point out the unfairness of granting bosses gilded exit packages while normal employees who lose their jobs after a merger or buyout hardly get as soft of a landing. Defenders of golden parachutes say they let executives focus on what's best for shareholders instead of worrying about whether they'll be replaced if a deal is struck.

In the case of Agrawal, 38, who had been at Twitter for almost a decade, he held firm that the company see through Musk's acquisition at $54.20 per share even though the Tesla Inc. co-founder said he didn't have confidence in management. Text messages unveiled during the lawsuit over the deal show that the two had a contentious text exchange early on in the process after Musk asked his followers whether Twitter was “dying.”

A Twitter representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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First Published Date: 28 Oct, 19:36 IST
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