G20 podium
Nishant Bhaiji
NEW DELHI: It is a David vs Goliath story, in which tragically David lost. The arrogance and power of money won over talent and professionalism.
After a delay of seven months, a period filled with drama, taunts, legal cases, the richest person in the world, Elon Musk could not acquire Twitter for a reduced price. Tesla and SpaceX CEO, even with all the mud-slinging, had to close the deal for $44 billion, just a day before October 28, a deadline mandated by court in the US. Musk’s ambitions were halted by the man at the helm, the Indian-American former CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal. He gave a vigorous fight to defend the interest of the shareholders and ensured that the company’s value did not plummet during the turbulent times.
After taking over the micro blogging site, eccentric billionaire’s walked into the Twitter’s headquarters with a sink and twitted, “let that sink in.” His first step as CEO was to fire Agrawal. Along with him, his close confidant and top management at twitter- head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde and chief financial officer Ned Segal and Twitter’s general counsel, Sean Edgett- were also fired.
Later in the day, the selfproclaimed crusader of free speech, Musk twitted, “The bird is Freed.” To minimise his loses, like a shrewd businessman, Musk conspired to layoff as many as a quarter of Twitter workforce before employees receive a part of their year-end compensation scheduled for November 1. This was something former CEO Parag Agrawal had warned about. Fortunately for employees, Musk’s plans were foiled, as billionaire was publicly shamed when on October 29, New York Times reported that managers had been asked to draw up lists of employees that can be fired immediately.
Agrawal, an IIT graduate and Standford PhD-holder, was a favourite of Twitter co- founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. An expert in dealing with large database, he was unanimously appointed CEO on November 29, 2021. After the appointment of Agrawal as CEO of Twitter, Musk had tweeted, “USA benefited greatly from Indian talent.” It was reply to a tweet that talked about how US offers great opportunities to immigrants.
But, within few days, Musk posted a horrific and insulting tweet. In a meme, a smiling Parag, as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, was seen shoving, Dorsey, pictured as notorious Soviet secret police head Nikolai Yezhov, into river they were walking next to. It was nothing short of an effort to malign Agrawal’s image, who was endorsed as someone who “leads with heart and soul” by Dorsey in a email sent to all the employees of Twitter.
Things took a uglier turn, ever since Musk put forward a hostile bid to acquire Twitter earlier this year in April. Going by the the private chats of Elon Musk, which became public as part of evidence in court filing, initially, before the bid, Agrawal did warm up to Musk. He even paved way for the latter’s appointment as a Board member.
But, when eccentric Musk could not control the urge to tweet, “is Twitter dying”, Agrawal warned him in politest manner possible. He explained that such actions were negatively affecting workspace environment at Twitter, overall functioning and reputation of the company.
Agrawal’s restraint was only met with Musk’s insulting and rude reply, “What did you get done this week?” Within few seconds, Musk wrote again, “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time”. Before Agrawal could respond, he snapped again, “Will make an offer to take Twitter private.” But, this is not an isolated example of condemnatory attitude of the rich billionaire towards Agrawal.
Upon Musk expressing desire to share his ideas to make Twitter “maximum amazing”, Agrawal enthusiastically responded that he was all ears. Musk further pushed to be given a direct access to the software teams. Agrawal, recipient of the Twitter’s “Distinguished Engineer” title, humbly responded, that prior to being CEO, he served the company as Chief Technology Officer and was deeply entranced in “codebase”. He added, “So I can answer many many of your questions.” Musk stooped low and insultingly wrote back, “I interface way better with engineers who are able to do hardcore programming than with program manager/ MBA types of people.”
Till the very end, Agrawal took a principled stand working and protecting the interest of vulnerable shareholders of the Twitter. He endured vehement attacks of a billionaire whose freedom of speech and liberty did not end at the beginning of anyone’s nose.
