CEO Parag Agrawal to exit Twitter as Musk completes its acquisition

As Elon Musk completes his $44 billion deal to take over Twitter, Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal is among executives planning to depart the social network, according to people familiar with the matter.

Also leaving are Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal, policy and trust; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, who joined Twitter in 2017; and Sean Edgett, who has been general counsel at Twitter since 2012. The source which divulged these details declined to be named because the information isn’t public.

Agrawal stepped into the role of the CEO in November following co-founder Jack Dorsey’s unexpected exit. Agrawal had been at Twitter for almost a decade, most recently as chief technology officer. But his run as CEO was soon disrupted by Musk’s arrival as a major shareholder and increasingly vocal antagonist of its current leadership.

After Musk came on board, it became clear that Agrawal was unlikely to keep his job. “I don’t have confidence in management," Musk said in one early filing about the deal. The two executives also exchanged some public swipes.

In May, Elon Musk replied to a Twitter thread from Agrawal defending the company’s user metrics by tweeting back a poop emoji. Text messages unveiled during the lawsuit show that the two men had a contentious exchange early on during the deal process after Musk asked his followers whether Twitter was “dying."

Agrawal confronted him via text. “You are free to tweet ‘is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter," he wrote on April 9, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context." Musk fired back, “What did you get done this week?" And then: “I’m not joining the board this is a waste of time."

Agrawal won’t be leaving empty handed however. As part of the deal, the CEO will vest 100% of his unvested equity awards, according to a filing, which as estimated by Research firm Equilar will be around $42 million.

Gadde, who has overseen the creation and enforcement of rules for hundreds of millions of internet users, was hit with a spate of online abuse earlier this year after Musk publicly criticized content-related decisions at Twitter. The company permanently banned former US president Donald Trump in January 2021 following his supporters’ attack on the Capitol.