Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Throws the ‘Kitchen Sink’ at His Successor Elon Musk
- The lawsuit filed along with two other fired executives Vijaya Gadde and Ned Segal, alleges that they are owed $1 million in legal fees.
It appears that it is former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal’s turn to throw the kitchen sink at Elon Musk, who famously arrived at the San Francisco headquarters of the social media company soon after he acquired it to symbolically declare that he was going to purge everything that was wrong with the micro-blogging site.
Along with former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and former chief financial officer Ned Segal, Agrawal has filed a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court alleging that they are owed reimbursement for more than $1 million in legal fees. The three executives were fired by Musk after his takeover.
According to a report in the Daily Beast that cited the lawsuit, “Twitter agreed to indemnify the executives in the case of litigation or other situations where they required counsel. But after their departure, they say, the company failed to uphold those agreements. Instead, two months after the plaintiffs demanded payment in writing, Twitter offered only ‘a cursory acknowledgment of receipt, but still refused to acknowledge its obligations.’”
The legal bills, according to the lawsuit as reported by Daily Beast, stem from a variety of circumstances. Gadde was subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and she was also sued by a disgruntled Twitter user who claimed she “‘doxed’ him as a white supremacist.”
In an effort to cut costs, Musk fired nearly two-thirds of the Twitter staff, even though he had to shell out good money to compensate them. Reports differed on how much was Agrawal’s exit package. Reports ranged from $57.4 million to $42 million.
According to research firm Equilar, “Agrawal’s approximate base salary was $1 million, while his health benefits were listed at $9,172. The vast portion of his exit compensation comes from equity — which includes shares he had held in the company — valued at about $56.4 million.”
The other two executives, too, received their golden parachutes. Equilar, citing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, said Vijaya Gadde was to get $20 million and Ned Segal $44.5 million.
Agrawal is an IIT Bombay alum and has a doctorate from Stanford University. Gadde earned a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law.