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CNN Business
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When Parag Agrawal took over as Twitter’s CEO final November following cofounder Jack Dorsey’s wonder resignation from the function, he was once little identified outdoor the corporate.
Ten months later, Agrawal has featured prominently in a whistleblower disclosure, been rebuked via identify in a Congressional listening to and fielded complaint from the arena’s richest guy (and his imaginable long run boss) each publicly and privately.
Tensions haven’t eased for him. Agrawal was once set to be deposed on Monday morning in San Francisco as a part of the continued prison struggle between Twitter
(TWTR) and Elon Musk over their $44 billion acquisition deal. He has additionally confronted drive to reply to questions from Congress in regards to the whistleblower disclosure.
Even for a corporation conversant in sessions of upheaval, Agrawal’s tenure main Twitter has been marked via an bizarre level of chaos: a nightmare acquisition struggle with Musk; a former government alleging severe safety vulnerabilities; and an financial downturn hitting its core promoting trade.
That could be so much to navigate for even essentially the most seasoned leader government. But Agrawal, a decade-long veteran of Twitter who in the past served as its CTO, had by no means in the past run an organization — let on my own some of the global’s maximum necessary social media platforms.
“I think Parag was elevated because they thought everything would be status quo,” mentioned Bill Klepper, control professor at Columbia Business School. The previous 12 months has been the rest however that.
Despite the demanding situations, Agrawal has controlled to proceed rising the platform’s consumer base and has introduced quite a lot of new options, together with checking out the long-awaited edit button. But there are honest doubts about whether or not Agrawal will live on every other 12 months, whether or not as a result of Musk is pressured to shop for the corporate after which gets rid of him, or since the board replaces him if the deal falls thru.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers and regulators are suggesting Agrawal might be probed within the wake of the whistleblower allegations, which at once implicate Agrawal, each as CEO and in his earlier function at CTO.
“I’m sure when he goes home at night, he says to himself, ‘What the hell did I get myself into?’” mentioned Klepper.
Twitter declined to remark for this tale.
From the beginning, Agrawal had a frightening process. The corporate’s current objective was once to by some means upload 100 million further day by day energetic customers via 2023, a forty five% build up from the fourth quarter of 2021, and develop its annual income to $7.5 billion, up from simply over $5 billion in 2021. At the similar time, it was once exploring new income alternatives, corresponding to its Twitter Blue subscription carrier and cryptocurrency-related options.
“The challenge for Twitter is that they still have not been able to grow their user base and improve their monetization to the level where their monetization is on par with their influence,” Forte mentioned.
Then got here Musk.
In March, after months of quietly accumulating Twitter stocks, Musk met with Dorsey, despite the fact that he was once now not Twitter’s CEO, to “discuss the future direction of social media,” in step with an organization submitting. In the times that adopted, Musk met with Twitter’s board and a few of its management group, together with Agrawal; publicly introduced that he’d turn out to be Twitter’s greatest shareholder; and accredited a seat at the corporate’s board.
Days later, Musk tweeted, “Is Twitter dying?” Agrawal texted Musk later that day to mention the tweet was once making his existence tricky as CEO.
“You are free to tweet ‘is Twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter,” Agrawal mentioned within the textual content to Musk, printed in a courtroom submitting final week, “but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context. Next time we speak, I’d like you to provide [your] perspective on the level of internal distraction right now and how [it’s] hurting our ability to do work … I’d like the company to get to a place where we are more resilient and don’t get distracted, but we aren’t there right now.”
Musk answered tersely: “What did you get done this week?” In two follow-up texts, he rescinded his settlement to sign up for the board, pronouncing, “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time.”
Musk then deserted the board seat, threatened a adverse takeover and in the end agreed to shop for Twitter for $54.20 in line with proportion, a vital top rate to the corporate’s proportion worth on the time, handiest to then try to withdraw from the deal months later, mentioning considerations in regards to the selection of bots and junk mail accounts at the platform. Twitter is now suing him to finish the deal.
Throughout, Agrawal has needed to reassure shareholders, advertisers and staff about an acquisition via a billionaire who has been publicly crucial of the platform whilst additionally confronting public jabs from any person who might be his new boss.
In May, Musk and Agrawal gave the impression to overtly feud on Twitter over the Tesla CEO’s claims about bots. Agrawal posted a tweet thread making an attempt to provide an explanation for the superiority of false and junk mail accounts at the platform and the corporate’s efforts to quantify and deal with them; Musk answered with a poop emoji.
Twitter, which many prison mavens say has the more potent case, is looking for to have a pass judgement on drive Musk to keep on with thru with the purchase settlement. In that case, it kind of feels not going Musk would stay Agrawal as CEO or that Agrawal would make a choice to stick.
In a textual content message trade with Dorsey in April after the deal was once signed, Musk advised he could be not able to paintings with Agrawal. “Parag is just moving far too slowly and trying to please people who will not be happy no matter what he does,” Musk mentioned in a textual content.
If Musk takes over the corporate and Agrawal is got rid of, Agrawal may just obtain a payout price tens of tens of millions of bucks, together with repayment for his inventory choices.
But even though Musk wins, or the 2 aspects agree on a agreement that permits Musk to get out of the deal, Klepper mentioned Agrawal last as CEO can be a longshot. In the development Musk walks, Twitter’s inventory may just take a success. The corporate would additionally nonetheless be dealing with the similar demanding situations to its trade, compounded via attrition amid the uncertainty with Musk.
“They’ve got a lot of stuff to clean up,” he mentioned. “The first thing they’re going to do is bring in a new leadership, someone who has turnaround experience.”
As the prison struggle with Musk heated up, Twitter was once hit with every other blow: Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the corporate’s former head of safety and a very talked-about determine within the data safety global, went public with a whistleblower grievance.
Zatko accused the corporate of getting severe safety vulnerabilities that threatened customers, traders and US nationwide safety. He additionally alleged that the corporate is susceptible to international interference and that its executives, together with Agrawal, have misled regulators and the corporate’s personal board.
The first months of a brand new CEO’s tenure are usually spent assembly with quite a lot of portions of the corporate and discussing technique with their board, Klepper mentioned. But in step with interior paperwork integrated in Zatko’s whistleblower disclosure, in December and January, Agrawal was once additionally fielding considerations from Zatko that the brand new CEO and different executives had offered false details about the corporate’s safety posture to the board, in what Zatko alleged may just quantity to fraud. In January, the Twitter board’s audit committee introduced an investigation into Zatko’s worries.
Twitter says that the investigation concluded Zatko’s allegations have been unfounded and that he was once fired for deficient efficiency; Zatko maintains he was once fired in retaliation for talking up. Twitter has mentioned the whistleblower disclosure paints a “false narrative” of the corporate this is “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
Still, the whistleblower’s claims have positioned a fair larger highlight at the corporate and Agrawal. Earlier this month, main contributors of the Senate Judiciary Committee despatched Agrawal a letter searching for data, and asked responses via Sept. 26. It’s no longer transparent whether or not Twitter has answered to the letter.
During a Senate listening to with Zatko, Sen. Chuck Grassley blasted Agrawal for no longer accepting a call for participation to testify along the whistleblower. Twitter declined to make Agrawal to be had amid its considerations that his testimony may just jeopardize the corporate’s ongoing litigation with Musk, in step with Grassley.
Grassley didn’t prevent there. If Zatko’s claims develop into correct, he mentioned, “I don’t see how Mr. Agrawal can maintain his position at Twitter.”
