The Elon Musk era at Twitter has begun, with Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the company finally closing late Thursday night.
And Musk wasted no time getting to work, firing several top execs, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and the platform’s head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde.
As per The Washington Post:
“The three top Twitter executives were hastily shuttled from the building, the people said.”
The New York Times has reported that general counsel Sean Edgett has also been informed that his services are no longer needed.
Those moves were not unexpected, given Musk’s previous criticisms of Twitter executive team, including Agrawal and Gadde by name. And they’re unlikely to be the last, with recent reports suggesting that Musk is aiming to cull up to 75% of Twitter current staff to cut costs and re-focus the app.
Though Musk claims that this number never came from him, and that he has no real number in mind for staff cuts. But cuts there will be, while the loss of experienced, skilled managers and leaders from the company’s ranks will also have significant impacts on how it operates, and evolves moving forward.
It’s still too early to tell how Musk will change the app. Musk has provided vague details of his various plans, which include increasing subscriptions, providing alternative algorithms for a more customized experience, and improving the app’s data targeting and matching for ads and other content. Twitter’s never been overly good at uncovering relevant content, and maybe, with his own team coming in, Musk may have a whole new way of honing in on relevant data signals, and maximizing the experience.
Evidently, he’s confident that he has the people to do it, because he’s already cut a huge chunk of experience out of the app.
We’ll keep you updated on any changes as they develop.
