Fired by Elon Musk, All About Desi CEO Parag Agrawal, His Equation with Twitter's New Owner & Future

Billionaire Elon Musk is now the new owner of Twitter, months after making the first bid to buy the social media company in April.

The billionaire has fired the social media company’s four top executives, including Indian-origin CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde, according to reports on Friday.

Both executives left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning. Musk closed the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter on Thursday.

Who is Parag Agrawal and Why Musk Terminated Him?

Musk had accused Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.

Neither Twitter nor Musk has responded to the developments as of Friday. However, Agarwal will not be leaving empty-handed. According to a report in Reuters, Agrawal will make an estimated $42 million including a year’s worth of Parag’s base salary and accelerated vesting of all equity awards.

Agrawal’s total compensation as the CEO was $1 million annually, according to reports.

Parag Agrawal, who graduated from IIT Bombay, joined Twitter in October 2011. He then became Twitter’s first Distinguished Engineer due to his work across revenue and consumer engineering.

His work at Twitter had a huge impact on the re-acceleration of audience growth in 2016 and 2017, as per Twitter. In October 2018, Twitter made Parag the CTO of the company.

On 29 November, 2021, Jack Dorsey resigned from Twitter and the Twitter board announced Parag as the new CEO of Twitter.

Parag, 38, is among the youngest big tech CEOs and is of the same age as Mark Zuckerberg.

Agrawal On Free Speech

Parag Agrawal shares platform’s founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s vision for a future of decentralized social media platforms. Earlier in 2019, he had said that Twitter’s moderation softwares would be guided by algorithms, not company executives.

Twitter was in news and centre of free speech debates after it suspended then US President Donald Trump’s account following the Capitol riots on Jan 6 2021 saying his tweets risked “further incitement of violence.”

The company also has a hateful conduct policy which bans tweets meant to cite fear of, or violence toward, protected groups.

“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation,” Agarwar said in an interview in 2020.

“The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed,” he added.

Agrawal On Musk’s Twitter Deal?

After the Musk’s April Twitter deal, Parag Agarwal had told employees that the future of Twitter under Musk is uncertain, according to Reuters.

Following the deal, he tweeted, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”

The former CEO deferred many questions including those about the board’s rationale for the deal, instead directing to Musk.

In the following mail to the employees, Agrawal said that he realized the deal would be a “significant change and you’re likely processing what this means for you and Twitter’s future.”

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