The saga surrounding Elon Musk’s impending – or at least supposedly impending – buyout of Twitter is rumbling on. As widely reported elsewhere on Friday, the Tesla CEO tweeted that he was putting his acquisition of the microblogging platform “temporarily on hold”, while awaiting confirmation that spam and fake accounts “indeed” account for less than 5% of Twitter users.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Now, on the backdrop of such uncertainty, Twitter’s current CEO – Parag Agrawal – has spoken up after his recent period of silence on the social network. Specifically, he addressed several talking points in the news in the last few days, including leadership changes that involved the departure of two senior Twitter executives.
The double firing of well-liked long-time leaders at the company attracted much comment, particularly given that Agrawal himself isn’t expected to keep his role as CEO once the Musk takeover is finalized.
And this perception of Agrawal as a “lame-duck” CEO was something he directly addressed in a Twitter thread, stating that “while I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.”
While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 13, 2022
The leadership shakeup was reportedly inspired by Agrawal’s wish to “take the team in a different direction”, while the company has also paused most hiring efforts as it seeks to manage costs.
In his Twitter thread on Friday, Agrawal justified the moves by stating that “our industry is in a very challenging macro environment – right now, 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.”
He continued: “So what can you expect from me going forward? I’m still focused on doing the job, and that includes making hard decisions as needed. I will continue to embrace the deep complexities of our service and our business. And you can expect more change for the better.”
In short? The cloud of change and uncertainty that has recently descended over Twitter very much remains. Agrawal’s reference to the “need to be prepared for all scenarios” would seem to allude to the possibility that the Musk deal might not actually close – but the wait for further news on that front continues.