Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal may get $42 million payout as he gets terminated by Musk

One of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter’s office,” the New York Times report said.

Elon Musk: Bought Twitter to try to help humanity, whom I love

Musk had initially agreed to buy Twitter in April 2022, following which he has made attempts to get out of the deal.

Agrawal, 38, was appointed Twitter CEO in November 2021 after the social media site's co-founder Jack Dorsey had stepped down.

An IIT Bombay and Stanford alumnus, Agrawal had joined Twitter over a decade ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees at the company.

“Agrawal, who was appointed Twitter’s chief executive last year, had clashed” with Musk “publicly and privately in recent months about the takeover,” the NYT report said.

Also read | What are Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter?

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 arrived at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco on October 27  and had been meeting with engineers and advertising executives.

Musk also updated his Twitter description to “Chief Twit.” The 51-year-old has promised to transform Twitter by loosening the service’s content moderation rules, making its algorithm more transparent and nurturing subscription businesses, as well as laying off employees.

In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy the social media service and take it private.

However, Musk soon began sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the agreement, alleging that the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the service.

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.” A Delaware Chancery Court judge eventually ruled that Musk had until October 28 to cement the Twitter deal or head to trial.

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.” The social media platform's shares will be suspended from trading on Friday, according to the New York Stock Exchange's website.