Twitter is witnessing a sea of change since Elon Musk took over the microblogging site. Musk is not shying away from challenging the established practices on the platform. He has even openly criticised the outgoing management of Twitter by calling it the messiest thing in the company. Musk’s unhappiness with the management might also trigger a range of issues for the former executives of the company. Former Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, Policy head Vijaya Gadde and CFO, Ned Segal stand to lose their severance pay.
Agrawal, Gadde and Segal stand to earn a fortune in severance pay after the deal was completed. However, Musk might have found a loophole in the system to avoid paying the heavy sum. The former chief executive was expected to get a payout of $42 million (roughly Rs 350 crore). The total payout to all three was expected to cross the value of $100 million.
According to a report by New York Times, Musk has terminated the executives “for cause”. This means he has some justification for not completing the payment. The report cited two people who are familiar with the matter.
In response to these allegations, Musk has even tweeted saying “This is false”. The NYT report also suggested that Musk had already triggered a series of firings from Saturday, one day after he took the reins from Agrawal. Musk has asked managers to draw up lists of employees who can let go. Another loophole that is discussed extensively is that if these employees leave the organisation before November 1, they won’t be eligible to get the severance pay and unvested stock awards. It is still to be confirmed if this method of avoiding payment to the former Twitter executives will stand in the court. The NYT report claims that Agrawal, Gadde and Segal are already exploring their legal options if Musk plans to devoid them of their massive payouts.