“It’s critical to have the right leaders at the right time,” Agrawal wrote in the e-mail.
Agrawal stated he was changing the two executives with Jay Sullivan, a vice chairman of client merchandise, who will now lead each client and income groups on an interim foundation. Sullivan has in the previous defended Musk’s takeover of Twitter, based on inner messages obtained by The Post.
“Elon truly believes in the power of Twitter and its importance in the world,” Sullivan instructed colleagues final month.
Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley had no touch upon whether or not Sullivan’s promotion was associated to his assist for Musk.
The modifications add yet one more chapter to the fast-moving and complicated saga of Musk’s takeover of a serious social community on the heart of how America’s political and media worlds talk. On Thursday, Musk reiterated on Twitter that he believed former president Donald Trump’s account must be reinstated. The firm completely banned him in 2021 for encouraging violence after the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.
“Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter,” Musk stated, then wrote in one other tweet: “Biden’s mistake is that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, but actually everyone just wanted less drama.”
Musk’s actions and hypothesis about his intentions have gripped Twitter because it was first revealed he was investing in the corporate in April.
Even earlier than going public together with his funding, Musk had repeatedly criticized Twitter’s administration. In December, simply after Agrawal took over the CEO job from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Musk tweeted a photoshopped picture portraying Agrawal as Joseph Stalin and Dorsey as Nikolai Yezhov, who the real-life Stalin had ordered assassinated.
Musk additionally requested his followers if Twitter’s tweet-sorting algorithm must be made publicly out there and whether or not they thought Twitter “rigorously adheres” to free speech beliefs.
Once his stake had been disclosed, Musk requested if Twitter was “dying,” declaring that many of the most-followed accounts used the platform lower than they’d in the previous.
When Musk and Twitter introduced the takeover deal on April 25, Musk’s quick assertion referenced his perception that Twitter may very well be run higher. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he stated.
In his memo Thursday, Agrawal additionally stated that Twitter was pausing hiring and would rethink job gives it had made, half of cost-cutting that was mandatory as a result of of the corporate lacking “audience and revenue” targets and its inventory being hit by the market downturn and different “macro-economic” forces.
Twitter has lengthy been identified for administration chaos and high-profile firings. But Thursday’s strikes are exacerbating fears of an worker exodus in response to Musk’s possession, The Post was instructed by two folks aware of inner discussions who spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain delicate issues.
In a tweet Thursday, Beykpour indicated that he had been fired. “The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision,” Beykpour wrote, including that Agrawal wished “to take the team in a different direction.”
Twitter spokesperson Kelley confirmed that the two executives had been leaving the corporate. She additionally confirmed that, efficient this week, Twitter will pause most hiring, apart from “business-critical roles.”
The firm additionally can be “pulling back on non-labor costs” to “ensure we’re being responsible and efficient,” she added.
The shake-up is especially uncommon as a result of of how lately Beykpour and Falck had been elevated to their positions. Agrawal’s December reorganization, in which two different executives left, positioned Beykpour in cost of client merchandise, Falck in cost of income merchandise and Nick Caldwell in cost of core expertise.
The tempo of product releases sped up underneath Beykpour, stated Nu Wexler, a former Twitter communications supervisor who left the corporate in 2017. “Kayvon came in and did a great job, he moved the company forward.”
Earlier in his profession, Beykpour co-founded and led the live-video start-up Periscope, becoming a member of Twitter after it purchased the start-up earlier than Periscope’s 2015 launch. (Twitter shuttered Periscope in 2021.) As a product chief at Twitter, Beykpour was identified for transferring quick, creating options such because the ephemeral tweet product Fleets, which was discontinued in 2021, and the dwell audio chat discussion board Spaces.
Musk‘s deal to acquire Twitter for roughly $44 billion, which he launched in April, is expected to be completed over the next three to six months.
Employees at San Francisco-based Twitter are generally liberal and highly vocal, and many have expressed resistance to Musk’s taking on the corporate. Others have expressed worry for his or her jobs, significantly if Musk makes use of his highly effective Twitter megaphone to publicly criticize particular staff, as he has already begun doing.
Sullivan’s inner protection of Musk occurred final month, earlier than the billionaire introduced his bid to purchase the entire firm and whereas it nonetheless appeared like his plan was solely to safe a board seat. “It is to our benefit to have a broad set of expertise, technology ideas, long term thinking, etc. on the board,” Sullivan instructed colleagues on the time.
In messages in response to Sullivan, quite a few staff expressed fears concerning the billionaire, with one noting that Musk’s “behaviors and ethics do not reflect what we stand for.”
Whatever the motive for the senior management change, some Twitter staff stated they preferred what they knew about Sullivan and his plans. “He seems sincere to me,” stated one, who spoke on the situation of anonymity. “He’s thinking longer-term, which I personally like.”
Joseph Menn contributed to this report.