NEW: Top Twitter Executives Ousted Ahead of Elon Musk Takeover
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Two top Twitter executives, Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck, announced that they were fired from the company by CEO Parag Agrawal.
Beykpour, Twitter’s general manager of consumer product, was still on paternity leave when his ousting was announced, and will be replaced by Jay Sullivan, who has been filling the role on an interim basis.
The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision. Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 12, 2022
“Interrupting my paternity leave to share some final [Twitter]-related news: I’m leaving the company after over 7 years,” Beykpour wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread Thursday.
“The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision. Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.”
Falck, the revenue product lead at Twitter, also said Agrawal fired him in a now-deleted tweet.
In a separate tweet, Falck praised his team members for what they had accomplished throughout his five years at Twitter.
“I wanted to take a moment to thank all the teams and partners I’ve been lucky enough to work with during the past 5 years,” he wrote. “Building and running these businesses is a team sport.”
We were able to achieve the results we did through your hard work – – quarterly revenue does not lie. Google it
— bruce.falck() 🦗 (@boo) May 12, 2022
“We were able to achieve the results we did through your hard work – – quarterly revenue does not lie,” he added in a follow-up tweet. “Google it.”
The change in leadership comes as Elon Musk is in the midst of buying Twitter for $44 billion.
Agrawal highlighted the importance of having the “right leaders at the right time” in a memo to Twitter staff announcing the layoffs, according to the New York Times.
“At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the decision was made to invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue, and as a company we did not hit intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals,” Agrawal said in the memo, according to Bloomberg. “In order to responsibly manage the organization as we sharpen our roadmaps and our work, we need to continue to be intentional about our teams, hiring and costs.”
Agrawal also announced that Twitter would not be hiring new employees and could rescind offers already made.
