Parag Agrawal was appointed Twitter CEO in November last year. (AFP File Photo)
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is now the new owner of Twitter, has fired the top leadership as part of his first moves. The departures include CEO Parag Agrawal, who was appointed to the post by the company's co-founder Jack Dorsey in November last year. Apart from the Indian-origin CEO, Mr Musk fired Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust at Twitter and two more top executives. The New York Times said in a report that Musk closed the $44-billion deal to buy Twitter on Thursday.
When Mr Musk made his desire to buy Twitter public in April this year, there were immediate buzz that Mr Agrawal will be fired. And research firm Equilar had calculated how much he will get if that happens.
The firm had said that Mr Agrawal would get an estimated $42 million (Rs 3,457,145,328) if he is terminated within 12 months of a change in control at the social media company.
Equilar's estimate included a year's worth of Mr Agrawal's base salary plus accelerated vesting of all equity awards, as reported by news agency Reuters. The estimate was based on Mr Musk's offering price of $54.20 per share.
Mr Musk had said in a securities filing on April 14 that he did not have confidence in Twitter's management.
Mr Agrawal, previously Twitter's chief technology officer (CTO), was named CEO in November last year. His total compensation for 2021 was $30.4 million, largely in stock awards, according to Reuters report.
An IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus, Mr Agrawal had joined Twitter over a decade ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees at the company.