October 29 (Reuters) – Twitter (TWTR.N) Media reports on Saturday said new owner Elon Musk has fired top executives in an effort to avoid exorbitant severance payments, while lining up with other layoffs as early as Saturday to avoid a stock award due on Nov.
Musk has fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and director of legal and policy Vijaya Jade when completing a high-profile $44 billion purchase of the social media platform on Thursday, Musk told Reuters.
He accused them of misleading him and misleading Twitter investors about the number of fake accounts on the platform. According to research firm Equilar, executives will receive severance payments totaling about $122 million.
Quoting anonymous people familiar with the matter, The Information mentioned Elon Musk has terminated four senior Twitter executives, including Agrawal and Sejal, for “a cause,” in an apparent attempt to avoid severance pay and unearned stock awards.
in tweet LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield said on Saturday that Musk had fired senior Twitter executives “for a reason,” preventing their unvested shares from being acquired as part of a change of control.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Reuters was not immediately able to contact the dismissed executives.
Equilar Director of Research Courtney Yu told Reuters on Friday that executives who were fired from Twitter “should get these (severance) payments unless Elon Musk has a reason to terminate, and the reason in these cases is usually that they broke the law or violated policy company.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times mentioned On Saturday, Musk ordered job cuts across the company, with some teams trimming more than others, and the layoffs taking place before the November 1 date, when employees were due to receive stock grants as part of their compensation.
Citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, the paper reported that the cuts may start as soon as Saturday.
Additional reporting by Jaivir Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard and Kenneth Maxwell
Our criteria: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
“Twitteraholic. Total bacon fan. Explorer. Typical social media practitioner. Beer maven. Web aficionado.”