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Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

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Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#142
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how acquisitions work. Elon made the offer, it was accepted. Now the company has to continue to operate without his influence until the deal actually closes.

Musk's financing is secured in part by his Tesla stock. Rumor had it that $740 was the share price where the lenders had the contractual right to withdraw their financing. As I write this, TSLA is $716. (Don't remember where I read that; but whether or not it's the actual price, I'm sure such a clause exists.)

The margin loan required less than 40% drop in price

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/business/elon-musk-tesla-...

He's currently trying to ditch the margin loan: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/musk-seek...

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#143
Are we all going to pretend Twitter's consumer product is not in desperate need of reworking?

It's failing hard to users and on the business side.

The decision makes sense...

This is extremely personal matter, beyond the Elon hate, I can't imagine why anyone would think its a good idea to make a public show about all this.

Good luck to him though. Would be awesome if he can prove Twitter (and the world) wrong and not be a one-hit wonder with Periscope. Or, not..

Time will tell.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#144
post #17

Why is Parag making any major changes at this point? What "new vision" is he going to execute in his last few months at the company before Elon comes in and torpedoes it anyways?

Its not over till its over. Elon may still not end up owning twitter.

But it's clear he's already 0wn3d it.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#145
post #114

A lot of assumptions here that Parag is out after Elon takes over. Is that backed up by evidence?

I may be wrong, but I assume that once Twitter becomes a private company there will be no more board and Elon will be the CEO. Parag may stay at the company in a different role.

I don't think Elon particularly wants to be in the actual driver's seat of Twitter. That's a job and a half, especially when he already has SpaceX and Tesla to manage. I rather assume he will have someone competent at the helm to which he can give incredibly broad orders like 'figure out how to make free speech work'. Though that doesn't mean Parag won't be out - the competent person is likely to be someone who is not soft on free speech like Parag is, and there's a good chance it'll even be Jack.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#146
post #43

Letting people go while they’re on maternity or paternity leave us not cool.

Don't worry, he'll be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.

Yeah, but it's the rank and file employees who will now think "I'm not there to defend myself against being fired if I take maternity/paternity leave" who will suffer most. The ones who won't be getting a severance larger than you can ever imagine.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#147
post #84

So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It wo…

My own guess is that this is doubtful that Musk drove this.

That said, he is a very large shareholder already, and so if he, as a large shareholder, communicated something to the board, and they acted, then the claim that isn't kosher rings a bit hollow - large shareholders communicate with boards and some activist ones go further.

Internally I suspect there is some concern about Musk. The head of legal was reportedly crying regarding this buyout. They've got their misinformation management efforts around the biden laptop story and other issues (vaccines etc etc) that musk may not back as fully as Gadde did. So they could be moving some deck chairs in advance of Musks arrival. Be interesting to see how it shakes out, may not be smooth - Twitter is HQ'ed in San Francisco.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that the deal will definitely close. The deal can still fall apart for a number of reasons. The risk of this happening is far from remote. This is evident from the current stock price of about $46, which is significantly lower than the $54.20 Musk is offering.

Only reason twitter hasn't tanked is people holding on hoping this deal goes through otherwise it would have dropped significantly with the rest of the tech index. My point is that its market cap is artificially overvalued currently on hopes that elon buys at 54$ (which i doubt he will)

I too believe that he'd be crazy not to renegotiate.

As far as I recall, they agreed on a break fee of ~$1bn if Musk walks away. But if he can lower the price to $40 a share (which is still far higher than market would probably be, at least in this market), he gets Twitter at $31bn instead of $42bn.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#149
post #84

So there's two options right - the first is that Parag is for some reason making big strategic decisions about the direction of the company despite the fact that we all know he'll be gone if the deal closes. Or he's making big strategic changes at the behest of the acquirers before the deal closes. Neither of these things seem particularly kosher moves to make. The question is how to figure out which one it is. It wo…

> So there's two options right

There are far more possibilities than those two. Here's just one off the top of my head (I assign no probabilities here, just pointing out this false binary): This person is being fired as a result of some investigation or process that began prior to the acquisition process and whose results have only just been reached. There are a whole range of process driving, "my hands are tied" scenarios that could explain this.

Re: Twitter CEO fires two top executives, freezes hiring

#150

> I’m just now learning that Parag fired Kayvon while he was on paternity leave, which is truly awful. > Parag is on his way out too. Why is he firing his product leaders during his lame-duck period? https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1524790595968901122

Curious why anyone would see this as "awful"

The sheer amount of equity, cash and packaging going into Kayvon's severance is going to be princely. Additionally, he's a founder of periscopeco, so he's not without direction.

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