Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said the deal with Tesla CEO Elon Musk for the platform’s buyout was not an excuse to avoid making important decisions for the company’s health.
In a thread on the platform, Agarwal said the deal with Musk was expected to be closed despite the tech billionaire putting the acquisition on hold on a temporary basis while he awaits data on the proportion of its fake accounts. Agarwal added that Twitter needed to be prepared for all scenarios and do what was right for it.
Musk announced his $44-billion takeover of the micro-blogging platform last month.
A lot has happened over the past several weeks. I’ve been focused on the company and haven't said much publicly during this time, but I will now.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 13, 2022
Agrawal said questions might be raised about a “lame-duck CEO” making these changes ahead of Twitter’s acquisition, but he needed to take decisions to be prepared for all scenarios and do what’s right for the company.
Finally – so much gratitude for our whole Twitter team. They have stood strong and focused, sharp and agile. They've been doing the work, as they always have. Onward.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 13, 2022
“We announced changes to our leadership team and operations yesterday. Changes impacting people are always hard,” the CEO tweeted.
“I won’t use the deal as an excuse to avoid making important decisions for the health of the company, nor will any leader at Twitter.”
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He said he was accountable for leading and operating Twitter and noted that it was their job to build a stronger Twitter every day. Agrawal said regardless of the company’s ownership, Twitter would be improved as a product and business.
“No one at Twitter is working just to keep the lights on. We take pride in our work,” the CEO tweeted. He added that he was focused on doing his job, including making hard decisions.
“I will continue to embrace the deep complexities of our service and our business. And you can expect more change for the better.”
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“I will also try to bring more transparency to the work that we do. You won’t see tweets from me on the ‘topic of the day’ or the loudest sound bite, but rather on the ongoing, continuous, and challenging work our teams are doing to improve the public conversation on Twitter.”
Agarwal also thanked the Twitter team in his tweets. “They have stood strong and focused, sharp and agile. They’ve been doing the work, as they always have.”
