Parag Agarwal Archives - Lokmarg

Twitter Starts Laying Off Employees In India

By LokMarg 4th November 2022

Twitter on Friday started laying off employees in India across engineering, sales and marketing, and communications units, sources said.

The number of employees who have been laid off is not clear at present.
According to sources, there is still no clarification on the severance payout for staff laid off in the country. These layoffs are a part of a global restructuring ordered by the social media platform’s new owner Elon Musk.

Musk is expected to cut roughly half of Twitter’s 7,500-person global workforce.

Last week, as soon as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk joined the company, he fired the then CEO Parag Agrawal.

The company temporarily closed its offices worldwide on Friday after telling employees they would be informed by email later in the day about whether they are being laid off.

As per an unsigned internal memo seen by The Verge, Twitter employees were notified in the email that the layoffs were set to begin.

The employees were to receive an email by 9 am PST on November 4, confirming whether they have been laid off or not, according to the internal memo, which also states that employee badge access to Twitter’s offices will be shut off “temporarily”.

“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted,” the memo read.

“Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere,” the memo added.

The layoff comes a week after Musk became the Twitter owner.

Musk had already indicated that he would make job cuts at Twitter, telling employees at a town-hall meeting this summer that there needs to be “a rationalization of headcount” at the social network.

On October 30, asked by someone on Twitter to identify “the one thing that’s most messed-up at Twitter right now,” Musk replied, “There seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding” at Twitter. (ANI)

Elon Named Sole Director After Takeover

By LokMarg 1st November 2022

Tesla CEO Elon Musk who closed the USD 44 billion twitter acquisition deal last week and took control of the micro-blogging platform dissolved the board on Monday and was named the sole director of Twitter, the social media platform said in a securities filing on Monday, The Hill reported.

Out of the many changes that Musk made to the social media platform, the dissolution of the board of directors is a major step as Twitter’s board members which included Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li, and Mimi Alemayehou will now no longer serve on the board, according to the company’s statement.
Elon Musk became the sole director of the company “in accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement,” the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Hill reported.

After closing the expected Twitter deal, the Tesla CEO purged the top executives of the company and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal left the company’s San Francisco headquarters.

Regarding the changes in content moderation policies, Musk wrote in a tweet that “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”

As per media reports, Elon Musk is also planning to start charging USD 20 per month for users to have a verified account. The Tesla CEO also instilled suspicion amongst social media users when he tweeted on his Twitter “Let the good times roll” shortly after he acquired the social media platform and closed the deal.

Musk arrived at the Twitter headquarters earlier this week carrying a sink, and documented the event on Twitter, saying “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” and also updated his Twitter description to “Chief Twit.”

He tweeted a video of him and described his visit as an experience that he was trying to “sink in” as the Tesla CEO has until the end of the week to either close the Twitter deal or face a trial.

In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy and take the social media service private. However, Musk soon began sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the agreement, alleging that the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the service.

In July, in a surprising turn of events, Elon Musk who had long been showing his interest to buy Twitter terminated the deal. The Tesla CEO did so by alleging that Twitter violated their mutual purchase agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform.

The previous week, Musk confirmed that he will move forward with the Twitter buyout at the originally agreed price of USD 54.20 per share. However, the Twitter deal legal proceedings had been put on hold by a judge overseeing the dispute until October 28. (ANI)

Bird Is Freed Tweets Elon, Will Reverse Life Bans

By LokMarg 28th October 2022

After completing his USD 44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc, Elon Musk has said that he intends to replace Parag Agrawal as CEO of the social media platform and also intends to reverse the permanent ban on users, according to a Bloomberg report.

Agrawal was fired along with other major executives upon completion of the takeover, Bloomberg on Friday reported citing a person familiar with the matter.
The Tesla and Space X owner is expected to remain CEO of Twitter in the interim period but may eventually cede the role in the longer term, the report said.

According to multiple reports in US media, Twitter’s Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde its legal and policy executive as well as Ned Segal, its chief financial officer Ned Segal was asked to go.

Musk ahead of his USD 44 billion Twitter acquisition deal had dismissed speculation about why he’d buy the micro-blogging platform and his thoughts on advertising.

“The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The Tesla founder said that Twitter should be “warm and welcoming to all” and enable users to choose the experience they want to have. Further, Musk told advertisers that he wants the platform to be “the most respected advertising platform in the world.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday Musk walked into the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco, carrying the bowl of a sink. This action was the object of several memes on the internet.

Musk tweeted a video of himself carrying a kitchen sink and captioned it “let that sink in!”

He also changed his Twitter profile to read “Chief Twit”.

After Musk put out the deal termination announcement, the market saw a sharp decline. Later, Twitter sued Musk accusing him of using bots as a pretext to exit a deal.

Again, last week, Musk confirmed that he would move forward with the Twitter buyout at the originally agreed price of USD 54.20 per share. However, the Twitter deal legal proceedings had been put on hold by a judge overseeing the dispute until October 28. (ANI)