Last week, after months of pushback and attempts to weasel out of the deal, Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter. Whether or not the Tesla and SpaceX honcho will make dramatic changes has yet to be seen. Prominent figures who’ve been banned — most notably former president Donald Trump — will stay so, at least for the time being. But Musk was quick to make one rash move: He fired three of the social media service’s top execs. But which ones?
As per Insider, Musk terminated the positions of former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, and former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde. But it was all part of a plan. A source told Insider that Musk fired the three execs “for cause” so that he didn’t have to pay them splashy severance packages as well as unvested stock awards.
The execs are reportedly considering taking further action, but it’s not as though they’re leaving the company with empty pockets. They will reportedly still receive hefty payouts; between the three of them, the cash could go as high as $122 million. Musk could avoid these payments if he’s able to prove that there was just cause for the terminations, namely that they broke the law or violated company policy.
Musk is not done retooling his new company. Insider reported that team leaders and VPs spent part of the weekend drawing up lists over who to keep and who to let go based on performance reviews.
Since Musk took over Twitter, things have not gone swimmingly. There was an instant uptick in racist and anti-Semitic posts, as well as ones featuring misinformation. Some of that misinformation was shared by Musk himself when he chimed in on the attempted murder of Nancy Pelosi’s husband by a MAGA fanatic with a claim that’s already been debunked.