Musk-Twitter deal: Agrawal, other top officials to walk away with fat cheques

Tesla chief Elon Musk is done buying the world's biggest digital town square for a $44-billion deal, and has also fired its top three lieutenants -- CEO Parag Agrawal, policy chief Vijaya Gadde, and CFO Ned Segal. However, the firing of these top executives will come at a whopping cost.

As part of the terms of the deal, the mega-billionaire will need to shell out more than $100 million in severance and other benefits, including a year's salary and health benefits, to these three and other top officials who are covered by the "golden parachute" clause agreed upon during the deal. The provisions are disclosed in Twitter's regulatory filings in May. The terms of the contract suggest that if they will be fired within 12 months of a change in control at Twitter, they are entitled to a year's worth of base salary and accelerated vesting of all equity awards.

All three of them -- Agrawal, Segal and Gadde -- also own around 1.2 million shares on the social media platform. Musk, who earlier said he doesn't have confidence in Twitter's management, will have to buy their stocks. In addition, they are entitled to salary and health benefits for a year.

Under the "golden parachute" clause, Gadde, Agrawal and Segal will walk away with $12.5 million, $38.7 million and $25.4 million, respectively, as severance. Twitter chief customer officer Sarah Personette will walk away with $11.2 million.

According to Twitter's SEC filing in May, Agrawal’s base salary upon his appointment as its CEO was $1 million in 2021, while that of Ned Segal and Vijaya Gade's base salary stood at $600,000, respectively. Agrawal’s salary was increased from $600,000 to $1,000,000 as a result of being promoted to CEO. In 2021, Parag Agrawal received $599,507 as a bonus, while Segale and Gadde received $450,000 each.

Notably, Parag Agrawal's bio still mentions him as the CEO of Twitter. The company has also not issued any statement on the issue so far. Musk, after closing the deal, has shot another tweet -- "the bird is freed", indirectly targetting its top management, which he had targetted on many occasions in the past.

Musk has also moved to assuage the fears of advertisers since many believe his ideas are in contrast with how the platform is being run for years and thus could hurt their revenues. In a rather long note on Twitter, Musk said Twitter will aspire to be the most respected advertising platform in the world, which will strengthen brands and grow their enterprise. "To everyone who has partnered with us, I thank you. Let us build something extraordinary together." Musk said he "very much" believes that "advertising, when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you; it can show you a service or product or medical treatment that you never knew existed but is right for you".