Source: Elon Musk fired top Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, “for cause”, in an apparent attempt to avoid severance and unvested stock payouts

When Elon Musk terminated four top Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal on Thursday …

The Information 2022-10-30 Martin Peers

Context & Ripple Effects

Musk’s takeover was immediately followed by the removal of Twitter’s CEO, CFO and policy head, documented in the initial executive purge. The reported “for cause” designation adds a compensation dispute to that leadership change, rather than treating the departures as ordinary transition exits.

Related coverage later alleged that the executive terminations breached contracts and records the former leaders’ lawsuit over more than $128M in severance, making the classification of the firings the central fault line.

First-order effects

Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal and the other dismissed executives lose their Twitter roles while their severance and unvested-stock treatment is put in dispute by Musk’s asserted cause for termination.
Twitter and Musk take on an immediate contractual challenge: subsequent reporting says the executives had not breached their employment agreements.

Second-order effects

The compensation dispute turns a management shake-up into a legal and financial exposure for Twitter, culminating in the former CEO, CFO, legal chief and general counsel suing over unpaid severance.
Musk’s later firing of engineers who publicly criticized him, reported in the employee-dismissal reports, extends the takeover’s personnel reset beyond the executive suite and raises the stakes of internal dissent.

Third-order effects

If cause-based terminations are used to limit exit obligations during ownership changes, executive employment contracts become a more consequential constraint on rapid post-acquisition restructurings.
The linked executive and employee dismissals point toward a more owner-directed operating model at Twitter, where leadership replacement and workplace speech are managed through immediate personnel actions.

The trend: Twitter’s takeover illustrates how a change in ownership can pair rapid leadership turnover with disputes over the contractual cost of replacing management.

Discussion

@mikeisaac Rat King on x
Saturday Night News: Musk fired the company's entire senior staff “for cause,” an attempt to avoid paying out tens of millions of dollars in severance packages to the former CEO, CFO, GC and head of legal https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@goldman Jason Goldman on x
To recap: Jack knifed his hand picked successor to anoint Elon the “sole solution” and now all the executives who ran the company for Jack are getting screwed out of their comp and Elon's going to fire half the company over a weekend to prevent them from hitting their cliffs.
@film_girl Chriscreama Warren on x
Labor attorneys please explain to me how Elon could do mass layoffs before vesting dates without filing WARN notices with the feds or the state? I've checked the data and there is nothing filed in California, New York or Washington states and the law is pretty clear on this.
@emptywheel @emptywheel on x
I suspect Elmo is firing the Twitter people in the way he is in part to punish them for accepting the ridiculously overpriced deal he offered them.
@lauramandaro Laura Mandaro on x
When Elon Musk terminated four top Twitter executives, he did so “for cause,” in an apparent effort to avoid paying out tens of millions of dollars in severance pay and unvested stock awards. @mvpeers https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@theinformation @theinformation on x
When Elon Musk fired top Twitter executives on Thursday, he did so in a way that may allow him to avoid paying out severance and unvested stock. https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@sawyermerritt Sawyer Merritt on x
NEWS: Elon Musk reportedly fired Twitter executives for ‘cause’ meaning he did it with justification, which may void payout - The Information Those executives, including Parag Agrawal, had been set to receive compensation up to $60M if they were fired. https://www.theinformation.…
@joshtpm Josh Marshall on x
Since the agreement was signed with full visibility into the performance of these executives this sounds like pretty straightforward lawsuits. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@joshtpm Josh Marshall on x
I guess he enjoyed spending time in court so much he decided to invite more obvious lawsuits https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Just received this email from Twitter. This is an actual, real email that was autogenerated 🤣🤣 https://t.co/7DQp4sNINX
@mims Christopher Mims on x
surely any judge would immediately recognize that Parag forcing Elon to buy at a ridiculous valuation = all time hero CEO move https://twitter.com/...
@jesseltaylor @jesseltaylor on x
If you took away government subsidies, family money, and weird fanboys, Elon Musk would be the manager of a Long John Silver taping up signs about how nobody wants to work these days https://twitter.com/...
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
We use polite euphemisms like “erratic” to describe Musk's misbehavior but here he's quite consistent: He doesn't believe in honoring $44 billion deals he signed and he doesn't want to honor $100 million deals his company agreed to. https://twitter.com/...
@goldietaylor @goldietaylor on x
He is moving swiftly to cheat employees out of their hard earned money. https://twitter.com/...
@tomaxwell Thomas Maxwell on x
Twitter was profitable as a public company, even if only slightly. But still, if a business is employing 7,000 people and is in the black, what's wrong with that? Why does it have to be WIDLY profitable rather than mildly so
@sdkstl Staci D Kramer on x
>>The layoffs at Twitter would take place before a Nov. 1 date when employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation...By laying off workers before that date, Mr. Musk may avoid paying the grants.<< https://twitter.com/...
@lemieuxlgm Scott Lemieux on x
TFW when you want to pay lawyers a ton of money before you pay the severance https://twitter.com/...
@espiers Elizabeth Spiers on x
For “cause”. Way to telegraph to entire staff and shareholders that you're not a serious person https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
Apparently doing this to get rid of people before their vesting on Tuesday. Seems almost certainly will end up in court, as I'm pretty sure California requires 60 days notice for mass layoffs... https://twitter.com/...
@aricohn Ari Cohn on x
“Employees hate this one trick” https://twitter.com/...
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
Based on reporting from both The Information and The New York Times, Musk firing in a way to attempt to not have to pay severance is already happening. Making up things that would qualify as firing for cause seems to be the angle he'll take (and is already taking) https://twitter…
@specialsitsnews @specialsitsnews on x
Job cuts are coming at $TWTR. According to the Times, managers being asked to draw up lists of people who could be let go https://www.nytimes.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
Layoffs could happen as soon as today at Twitter. Some managers have been asked to make lists of people to cut. Latest on the saga w/ @kateconger and @sheeraf. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@ivortossell Ivor Tossell on x
Article suggests layoffs could be up to 50% of a 7,500 person company by Tuesday. Will be absolute chaos. Half the people drawing up lists of people to fire will get fired because they're on someone else's list. https://twitter.com/...
@moorehn Heidi N. Moore on x
he really wants to spend all his time in court, huh https://twitter.com/...
@brandyzadrozny Brandy Zadrozny on x
Yet to be seen just how Elon Musk will change things on this website, but the people who make a living off trolling, misinfo, and rage politics are pretty psyched. From @JasonAbbruzzese and me. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
@ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x
The fired Twitter executives which so many liberal journalists are crying over — one of whom was Victim of the Week a few months ago when she was criticized on Twitter — will probably be OK.🙏 https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@doritoribio Dori Toribio on x
“Making Twitter a private company gives Mr. Musk some advantages... privately held firms do not have to make quarterly public disclosures about their performance. They are subject to less regulatory scrutiny and can be more tightly controlled by an owner” https://www.nytimes.com/…
@zackvoell Zack Voell on x
Steve Jobs' wife owns The Atlantic. Bezos bought the Washington Post. Salesforce CEO owns TIME magazine. A biotech billionaire owns the LA Times. A Thai billionaire owns Fortune magazine. But Elon Musk buying Twitter is the end of our sacred democratic norms?
@oothoon @oothoon on x
“Unlike publicly traded companies, privately held firms do not have to make quarterly public disclosures about their performance. They are also subject to less regulatory scrutiny and can be more tightly controlled by an owner.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@soutikbbc Soutik Biswas on x
✅Musk will face pressure from banks that lent him $12.5bn for the deal to begin repaying debt. ✅Musk borrowed $7.1bn from equity investors. He may face pressure from them who might want him to take Twitter public so they can recoup their investment. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@noahpinion @noahpinion on x
I hope Elon taking over Twitter will mean at least a few negative consequences for the people who turned our whole society into a clout-chasing hate-fest.
@katie_roof Katie Roof on x
Now that the deal has closed, source says Musk is expected to be Twitter CEO for a while https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Here it is: Twitter engineers were told today to *print out* their last 30 to 60 days of code, so they could show it to Elon Musk himself. Then they were told wait, no, actually, please shred all that code you just printed out. Subscribe to read ➡️ https://www.platformer.news/ ..…
@leahculver Leah Culver on x
Happy Friday all. https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
the bird is freed
@broderick Ryan Broderick on x
I think a lot of weirdos on here are really desperate to make Elon Musk into some kind of evil mastermind when really he's just a le epic South Park edgelord who's going to slash the site's resources and let it atrophy for very boring capitalism reasons. https://www.garbageday.em…
@soonergrunt @soonergrunt on x
I am not a coder. I can do some light scripting to get some data here and there, automate a task or two. But I thought Elon's “print out your code so we can go over it” was fucking stupid, but... It got worse. Read it all. https://twitter.com/...
@artificialnix Nix on x
to be fair, this would be exactly how any boomer who's never written a line of code in their life would try to manage a tech company https://twitter.com/...
@sarahjeong Sarah Jeong on x
still not over measuring code in printed pages https://twitter.com/...
@kazweida Kaz Weida on x
There is something particularly threatening about allowing a platform that is a haven for journalists to be owned by a government that had a journalist assassinated for exposing corruption. https://twitter.com/...
@thepacketrat Sean Gallagher on x
Because sure, a look at printed code that mostly reflects methods invoked from header files is totally illuminating. https://twitter.com/...
@s3rioussam Sam Sharma on x
An *electric* clown car. https://twitter.com/...
@moochava Kyle Marquis on x
It's honestly fascinating to watch these “alpha moves” that I don't respond to at all and can, in fact, barely process. https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
To be fair they did their investment in 2011 and just rolled it over (i.e. didn't take Elon's buyout). But... yeah. Remember this when Elon talks again about verifying all users and being a free speech platform... https://twitter.com/...
@espiers Elizabeth Spiers on x
This just reminds me of the time Jared asked me to produce a model with traffic projections and I made one with dynamic formulas (because nerd) and then he made me print it out to review then whined that the (changeable in the model) input variables were too low https://twitter.c…
@random_walker Arvind Narayanan on x
The simplest explanation is that the absurdity is the point. Makes the place intolerable for anyone who isn't a loyal minion and increases the likelihood they leave on their own. https://twitter.com/...
@djbigdaddy @djbigdaddy on x
This is idiotic. Engineers who stay there are nuts. https://twitter.com/...
@maxberger Max Berger on x
You can tell @elonmusk really cares about freedom of speech because the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the second biggest shareholder in his purchase of Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@scottnover Scott Nover on x
“Dear employees about to be fired, please print out all trade secrets. Wait—actually, please don't.” https://twitter.com/...
@parismarx Paris Marx on x
This brings to mind how angry Elon Musk got when @ummjackson told @cameronwilson that Musk doesn't understand code nearly as well as leads people to believe. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@drandrewthaler Andrew Thaler on x
I love how everyone is trying to figure out what the Grand Culture Discourse is, when it's almost certainly just that GM doesn't want to give money to a company privately owned by their direct competitor. https://twitter.com/...
@rmfifthcircuit Raffi Melkonian on x
Me, sending colleagues email to print out their last 30-60 days of legal briefing because I want to brief pair https://twitter.com/...
@laseletzky @laseletzky on x
Nobody does more harm than those who think they know everything lol https://twitter.com/...
@alexhern @alexhern on x
He's spent so long in companies where anyone who tells him his ideas are dumb is fired on the spot that he thinks his ideas are genius https://twitter.com/...
@helenkennedy Helen Kennedy on x
Elon and the Bone Saudis. What a team! https://twitter.com/...
@nealerichmond Neale Richmond on x
Ah lads, from the original pied piper himself https://twitter.com/...
@andrewbeckusa Andrew Beck on x
Considering I've been seeing ads for their electric cars everywhere on Twitter this could be more about not wanting to give their money indirectly to the category leader. https://twitter.com/...
@mollyjongfast Molly Jong-Fast on x
Congratulations Elon https://www.cnbc.com/...
@chiproytx Chip Roy on x
Totally fine with it before. https://twitter.com/...
@tedcruz Ted Cruz on x
The most important development for Free Speech in decades. https://twitter.com/...
@timcast Tim Pool on x
Veritas, Babylon Bee, JBP, Alex Jones, Trump, Carpe Donktum, James Lindsay, Milo, Sargon, Loomer So many more https://twitter.com/...
@nichcarlson Nich Carlson on x
Have been thinking... Does it really matter that Trump isn't on here anymore? Seems to me all of his Truth posts get reported on the way his tweets used to. And many of them become screengrab tweets anyway. https://twitter.com/...
@nigel_farage Nigel Farage on x
Their arrogance knows no bounds. https://twitter.com/...
@juddlegum Judd Legum on x
REMINDER: The new owner of one of the most powerful communications platforms in the world is a Ron DeSantis supporter https://twitter.com/...
@noahpinion @noahpinion on x
After Gamergate, everyone who ran Twitter saw what the quote-tweet had turned this platform into. And yet they kept it, because they knew it was their money-maker. Twitter as a video game where you get clout for hate was the only way they knew how to get rich.
@davidmackau David Mack on x
omg https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@brandyzadrozny Brandy Zadrozny on x
First order of business for the world's richest man, now in charge of the global town square: digging into catturd. https://twitter.com/...
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
With Elon in charge of Twitter, do republicans drop the push to repeal section 230? The social media censorship line seems to be toast as well.
@edludlow Ed Ludlow on x
Update to $TWTR status on @TheTerminal “acquired by private investor” Someone frame this. https://twitter.com/...
@silvermanjacob Jacob Silverman on x
Just want everyone to keep in mind that the old Twitter regime was really bad — just ask Saudi users. The new regime will find new forms of failure, innovated upon by Elon's crack team of five Joe Rogan knockoffs. (Also, DMs were never secure but especially not now.)
@jeffjarvis Jeff Jarvis on x
No, NYT, he's not “cleaning house.” He is purging the company of responsible adults with expertise and experience. Be careful of your words. How Twitter Will Change as a Private Company https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@sherman4949 Alex Sherman on x
Twitter ditched a CEO who already had one other CEO job to get one who already has three other CEO jobs. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@danielmcfadin Daniel McFadin on x
Less than two weeks before the midterms. I can only guess whose about to be given a new lease on Twitter life. https://twitter.com/...
@samir @samir on x
everyone who was banned but allowed to come back should have to have a skeleton avatar https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
So... @yoyoel notes that policy hasn't changed... but here we see that members of the team that carries it out are first out the door. https://twitter.com/...
@faizsays Faiz Siddiqui on x
Inside Elon Musk's Twitter, Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro is overseeing initial phases of the takeover. Tesla engineers reviewing code, even though the automaker doesn't run the type of distributed systems of a large social media network. Comms are nonexistent. https://www.washingtonp…
@meslackman Michael Slackman on x
Musk's purchase of Twitter was also a symbolic bookend to a decade in which social media evolved to be, in many ways, more useful to the powerful than the powerless. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
This is the quote, 💯 agree, “idea of Elon being flanked by his Tesla engineers reviewing Twitter code is laughable”... meanwhile burning down @vijaya's org is insane and much more serious than the current coverage lets on. https://twitter.com/...
@rbreich Robert Reich on x
Elon Musk's fortune, which ultimately enabled his takeover of Twitter, has been padded by billions in subsidies and contracts paid for by American taxpayers. Just in case anyone needed that reminder.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
🎶 let the good times roll 🎶
@catturd2 @catturd2 on x
Report ... day one of @elonmusk owning Twitter. I'll be doing this every day to see if anything changes. As of now, I'm still Shadowbanned, ghostbanned, searchbanned, and Twitter removed 1200 followers today - as usual. Nothing has changed - I'll report again tomorrow.
@studmacha @studmacha on x
Bringing in @kayvz is a good thing. Maybe..... https://twitter.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
Among the people Musk has brought into the fold at Twitter include his personal lawyer, Alex Spiro; @DavidSacks, a friend and VC; and @kayvz, a former Twittter exec who was fired under the previous CEO. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@dmarti Don Marti on x
GM can separate their brand from Twitter, Tesla can't https://twitter.com/...
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
Parag Agrawal basically pulled off an episode of Leverage on Elon Musk. He's walking away right now incredibly rich and there's some jazzy baseline going on https://twitter.com/...
@vassko @vassko on x
@Techmeme Nothing good will happen with David Sucks there now 💥
@koush @koush on x
He made every Twitter engineer print out the code they wrote in the past 60 days for review before his lawyers warned him that was a bad idea lol https://twitter.com/...
@evan_greer Evan Greer on x
Spoke to the NYT about how having a content moderation council for Twitter is a good idea in concept, but it serves at the pleasure of the new King (@elonmusk). “He can form the council, and he can dissolve it,” That's why we need #antitrust & real choice https://www.nytimes.com/…
@profcarroll David Carroll on x
“If Twitter becomes the go-to platform for the knucklehead brigade, advertisers will run, not walk” -@AdContrarian https://twitter.com/...
@tomcoates Tom Coates on x
This is the point where the advertisers start clamping down on Twitter, putting pressure on Musk to actually enforce fairly mainstream standards of content moderation that he'd pledged to throw out. https://twitter.com/...
@theepurity @theepurity on x
Y'all. This is why we should retweet & broadcast expert analysis of what's happening post-EM. To make it work, he needs these advertisers. To get the advertisers, he needs moderators. https://twitter.com/...
@mollyjongfast Molly Jong-Fast on x
I hope Elon Musk reads this https://twitter.com/...

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