Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Twitter execs to exit with $122 mn payout
Three top executives of Twitter Inc fired by new owner Elon Musk stand to receive separation payouts totaling some $122 million, research firm Equilar said on Friday, according to Reuters.
Musk fired Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. He had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.
In an email to Reuters, Equilar, known for its research on executive compensation, valued Agrawal’s so-called “golden parachute” at $57.4 million, while Segal’s was $44.5 million and Gadde’s was $20 million. Twitter representatives did not immediately respond to questions. Meanwhile, India’s expectation that it must comply with the country’s existing and upcoming new IT rules which will be published within days, a minister told Reuters on Friday.
“Our rules and laws for intermediaries remain the same regardless of who owns the platforms,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s minister of state for electronics and information technology. “So, the expectation of compliance with Indian laws and rules remains.”
Agrawal, previously Twitter’s chief technology officer, was named CEO last November. His total compensation for 2021 was $30.4 million, according to a Twitter securities filing, largely in stock awards. Major payouts to executives tied to changes in control of a company are common to smooth ownership transitions but can be controversial.
Twitter’s filing states that “In the case of a Change of Control event, we believe that these arrangements assist to maximize stockholder value and maintain executive focus in the immediate period prior to, during and after the Change of Control event.”
Payouts would include 100% of an executive’s annual base salary, healthcare premiums, and accelerated vesting of equity awards, the filing states.
Equilar director of research Courtney Yu said the fired Twitter executives “should be getting these payments unless Elon Musk had cause for termination, with cause in these cases usually being that they broke the law or violated company policy.”
Later, Bloomberg reported that employees were seen leaving the company’s San Francisco headquarters carrying boxes of belongings. The cuts started right after the deal close on Thursday with several executives, people familiar with the matter have said.
The company has scheduled an employee meeting for next Wednesday, but some staff did not receive invitations, according to a person familiar with the matter.