According to a recent report from the Information, Tesla CEO and Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk recently fired top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal and censorship queen Vijaya Gadde “for cause” to avoid paying out millions in severance packages, commonly referred to as “golden parachutes.”
The Information reports that Elon Musk recently fired senior Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and censorship queen Vijaya Gadde, “for cause” in a bid to avoid paying million in severance payouts. Breitbart News recently reported that Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety. The company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, was also let ago according to sources and all were promptly escorted out of the company’s offices in San Francisco.
One source told the Information that Musk dismissed the executives “for cause” in an attempt to avoid severance payouts and unvested stock awards by suggesting that he had justification for the termination of the executives. Two sources told the New York Times that the executives were now considering their options, including legal action.
The former executives were in line for golden parachutes adding up to almost $90 million with Agrawal alone expected to receive $38.7 million due to shares vested since his departure. The research firm Equilar told Reuters that the payouts could cost as much as $122 million.
Courtney Yu, Equilar’s research director, told Reuters on Friday that the executives “should be getting these payments unless Elon Musk had cause for termination, with cause in these cases usually being that they broke the law or violated company policy.”
Sources say Musk plans to assume the role of CEO at Twitter but may eventually exit the role and appoint a new executive to the position. Sources also claim that Musk plans to remove Twitter’s permanent blacklisting of users as he does not believe in lifelong bans.
This would mean users that have previously been removed from the platform, such as former President Donald Trump, should be able to return to the site once again. It remains to be seen if formerly blacklisted users choose to return, and what other policies Musk plans to introduce.
Read more at the Information here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan