The axman cometh for Twit execs
Twitter has ousted two top executives — with both of them tweeting they were fired on Thursday — as the social media giant edges closer to being acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Kayvon Beykpour, the company’s general manager, and Bruce Falck, Twitter’s head of revenue, announced on Thursday that they were let go by CEO Parag Agrawal.
Jay Sullivan, the head of consumer product, will take over Beykpour’s position.
Beykpour tweeted on Thursday that “this wasn’t my decision” and that Agrawal “asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.”
Falck also tweeted that he was “fired” by Agrawal. That tweet was later deleted.
Agrawal circulated a memo to Twitter employees on Thursday announcing the departures.
In the memo, which was first reported by The New York Times, Agrawal also announced that the company would freeze new hires and that discretionary spending would be pulled back.
There are currently no plans to lay off staffers, per the memo.
Agrawal noted in the memo that the changes were made due to Twitter’s failure to hit audience and revenue growth goals.
Twitter has been thrown into turmoil since the company’s board of directors announced last month that it had accepted Musk’s $44 billion buyout offer.
Musk has said he intends to buy out shareholders and take the company private.
He has vowed to revamp the company’s content moderation policies that have resulted in bans of controversial figures, many of them on the political right. Twitter is fearful that employees could resign en masse ahead of Musk’s takeover, according to a regulatory filing that was submitted this week.