“What did you get done this week?”
When Elon Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter on Thursday evening, he immediately cleaned house. Among the high profile axes was chief executive Parag Agrawal, the handpicked successor of cofounder Jack Dorsey. All told, Agrawal’s abrupt firing caps off one of the strangest tenures in recent memory for a big tech CEO, and sets the stage for massive uncertainty as the Musk era begins.
The two men represent almost diametrically opposed approaches: the quiet, product-driven manner of an operations tactician versus the brashness of the world’s richest person. Now it’s up to Musk to try to shepherd one of the most important social networks in the world.
“[Agrawal] was in an impossible position as someone who was not going to please everybody,” said Bob O’Donnell, principal analyst at Technalysis. “It was an extraordinarily difficult job that I’m not sure anybody could have handled — I’m not sure Musk could either.”
Musk, Agrawal and Twitter didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Agrawal leaves behind an enigmatic legacy. His exit package is expected to tally as high as $57.4 million, according to research firm Equilar, an eye-popping sum for an executive who held the position for less than a year.
“This is in the hall of fame of golden parachutes,” said Dan Ive, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities. “As a fiduciary responsibility, he and the board, they’re popping champagne.”
Some Twitter employees reportedly feel like he didn’t rise enough to the occasion when the company was threatened by a hostile outsider.
