Less than a week after the ownership of Twitter finally went into the hands of tech billionaire Elon Musk, there have been sweeping changes into the social media company, the latest of which finalizes Musk’s formal position in Twitter.
Elon Musk, who had changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” after he suddenly changed his mind and went ahead with the multi-billion-dollar acquisition. SEC filings now reveal, that he will be serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the popular micro-blogging site, at least till someone else is appointed for the critical position.
Musk’s ascension to the post of CEO of Twitter makes him the third person to sit in the Twitter CEO seat over the past 12 months. Late last year, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey informed that he would be stepping down from the role to make way for Parag Agrawal, formerly Twitter CTO. A large chunk of Agarwal’s tenure as CEO, however, was characterized by his tussle with Musk which saw standoffs, lawsuits, and sending of poop emojis over a dramatic few months.
Agrawal’s term came to an abrupt end after Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter and promptly celebrated by firing several of the top executives of the company. Agarwal was one of those to get the boot, and now, he is set to get a handsome nest egg in the form of a payout.
The firing of Agarwal and other Twitter executives have not only cleared the way for Musk to take over the popular social media platform and eliminate any opposition he would have faced in enacting his ambitious policies, but it also rendered him the sole director of Twitter. In a separate filing, Musk informed that those who had occupied the positions of the directors of Twitter ahead of the acquisition would cease to remain in their positions. This list includes Agrawal, Salesforce’s Bret Taylor, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou.
This is just temporary
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022
Twitter will not be completely bereft of a board of directors, however, and Musk tweeted that the decisions to dissolve the board was just a temporary one. He did not offer any elaboration, but it is likely that any individuals to be appointed to the board will be those close to or loyal to the new owner and CEO of Twitter, who intends to unlock the “extraordinary potential” of the platform.
This makes Twitter the latest company to run under Musk’s leadership, after EV giant Tesla, space major SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm The Boring Company.
Now that Twitter’s top management is no longer in office, Twitter employees are bracing for the extensive (and inevitable) layoffs as Twitter continues to restructure itself. Previous media reports informed that Musk was looking to lay off 3/4th, or 75% of Twitter’s total workforce. Musk later denied a report by The New York Times that said that he was looking to fire a chunk of Twitter’s employees, but now, it seems that a quarter, or 25%, of the total workforce will be getting the boot from Twitter.
The eliminations will not be limited to one or two departments but will span almost all of them, especially sales, product, engineering, legal, and trust and safety. A report by The Washington Post read that the members of Musk’s inner circle gad conducted “detailed discussions “ with Twitter’s remaining senior executives regarding both content moderation and spam (which includes the formation of a content moderation council), and laying off 25% of the workforce to begin with.
