Day after Elon Musk put Twitter deal on hold, its CEO says need to be prepared for all scenarios
Parag Agrawal made the comment in a series of tweets on why two senior executives of the company quit earlier this week.
Days after two senior executives of Twitter quit, the social media platform’s Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal on Saturday said that even though he expected Elon Musk’s takeover of the firm to go through, the company needed to be prepared for all scenarios.
Twitter has seen rapid developments since Musk, the world’s richest man, announced a $44 billion (over Rs 3,36,910 crore) deal last month to buy the company.
On Thursday, Twitter said that a general manager in charge of research, design and engineering, Kayvon Beykpour, and head of products Bruce Falck would leave the company, AFP reported. Beykpour said that Agrawal asked him to leave, saying that he wanted to “take the team in a different direction”.
On Friday, Musk said that his acquisition of Twitter was on hold “pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users”.
In a Twitter thread on Saturday, Agrawal wrote that he had been asked why a “lame duck” CEO would make changes to the leadership when Twitter was getting acquired anyway.
“While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter,” he wrote.
While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 13, 2022
The Twitter CEO said that he was accountable for leading and operating the company.
“No one at Twitter is working just to keep the lights on,” he said. “We take pride in our work. Regardless of the company’s future ownership, we’re here improving Twitter as a product and business for customers, partners, shareholders, and all of you.”
Agrawal said that he would not use the deal as an excuse to avoid taking important decisions.
On April 26, the microblogging platform had said in a regulatory filing that Musk will buy Twitter. The company said that the deal had been unanimously approved by its board of directors and is expected to close in 2022, pending regulatory clearance and the approval of shareholders.
On completion of the transaction between Musk and Twitter, the social media firm will become a privately held company. This means that the company would no longer be listed or traded on a public stock exchange. Twitter also will not have to report financial information to the market regulator Security and Exchange Commission or follow many of its rules.