Happy Nice Mall

SAN FRANCISCO — At a virtual meeting for Twitter executives last week, Parag Agrawal He admitted that he was tired.

Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, had spent the last six weeks running the company. $44 billion in sales with elon musk, the richest person in the world. Some employees were openly rebelling against the new owners, who criticized the social media service and its managers. Others felt sorry for Mr. Agrawal. recent corporate turmoil. And it seemed likely that Mr. Musk would have kept Mr. Agrawal from his job.

At the meeting, Mr Agrawal said he was “raw” about the whirlwind that drew attention to Twitter’s problems and Mr Musk’s deal, two people with knowledge of the incident. However, he also expressed that he accepted his situation and said that he would continue his plans for the company.

Mr. Agrawal touched on key areas that need improvement: Twitter’s core product, the company’s depth of technology, business, freedom of speech across the platform, and more importantly, what leadership looks like. The public said that some executives left the meeting energetically.

This is what Mr Agrawal could do, given the circumstances. That’s because, due to all the top jobs in tech, the 38-year-old is at perhaps the most improbable.

Indian-born administrator, a protégé Twitter co-founder Jack Dorseyhas only been responsible for the company since November. It was expected to return Twitter after years of missed growth and financial goals. But within months, Mr. Musk had dominated, essentially turning Mr. Agrawal into a lame duck who had to manage an uneasy workforce and deal with Twitter’s growing economic challenges before he was fired from the company.

“There’s no one in the world who would want to be in these shoes,” said Bob Sutton, an organizational psychologist and professor at Stanford University.

But even as Mr. Agrawal grapples with the situation, he faces a soft landing. If Mr. Musk fires him as CEO, Mr. Agrawal will make tens of millions according to his securities filings. (In November he had a compensation package $1 million annual salary plus bonuses, as well as limited stock units and $12.5 million worth of performance-based stock units.)

Mr Agrawal will appear at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting, which will be held virtually on Wednesday. He and other executives are not expected to discuss the deal with Mr Musk, which shareholders will vote on at a later date. Instead, Mr. Agrawal will keep the meeting procedural and brief, according to a regulatory filing.

Behind the scenes, employees and advisors, Mr. Agrawal, said Twitter was working with bankers and board members to close its sale to Mr Musk, despite the billionaire’s recent proposal. wanted to renegotiate and made scathing comments about the company.

Mr Agrawal has also doubled down on his plans to overhaul Twitter while possible. this month, it fired two senior executivesMany stopped their hiring, and the company withdrew discretionary spending after it missed financial targets. It also plans to improve Twitter’s features using machine learning, making the platform more attractive to new users and moving faster to launch new products, according to a presentation at a company meeting this month.

“I know we are going through a period of uncertainty,” Mr. Agrawal said at that meeting, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times. “We’re returning our focus to our business.”

Mr. Agrawal joined Twitter as an engineer in 2011 while completing his PhD in computer science at Stanford. He then rose steadily through the company’s ranks and became chief technology officer in 2017. He has spent most of his career with the company and has more than 610,000 followers on the service.

As chief technology officer, Mr. Agrawal has worked on some of Twitter’s complex technical challenges and built relationships with engineering colleagues and Mr. Dorsey. He shared Mr Dorsey’s vision that the future of Twitter depends on overhauling its technology so it can rely more on machine learning and decentralize its services to give users more control over their experience on the platform.

When Mr Dorsey handed the reins to Mr Agrawal in November, the engineer instantly went from supervising a handful of employees to managing more than 7,000 people. “My confidence in him as our CEO is deep to the bone,” said Mr. Dorsey.

Mr. Agrawal immediately made the change. Days after becoming CEO, two senior executives dismissed Responsible for design and engineering. He gave broader responsibilities to the remaining leaders. In internal emails seen by The Times, he stressed accountability, saying the new structure will clarify who is responsible for what tasks and speed up the decision-making process.

In January, Mr. Agrawal was pushed out. two security managers. In an internal memo, he said the organization was not being managed according to his expectations, which was affecting the top priority business.

Some Twitter employees applauded the moves, saying that some of the ousted managers were stagnant or bullied workers. Others were shocked by Mr Agrawal’s dismissal of longtime leaders and finding him mysterious.

By March, Mr. Musk has started Build a big stake on Twitter. On March 31, Mr. Agrawal spoke to Mr. Musk to introduce himself to joining Twitter’s board, according to a regulatory filing. Mr. Musk initially accepted, then reversed course. Mr Musk said he was considering the proposal to make Twitter private and that he had the idea to start a new social media company, according to the filing.

This was Mr Agrawal’s first brush with Mr Musk’s unpredictable style, which quickly became routine. Mr. Musk soon launched a takeover bid for the company, signed the deal, and subsequently pinned Mr. Agrawal on Twitter for issues such as fake accounts. When Mr. Agrawal tried to address the concerns on Twitter, Mr. Musk responded by sending him a poop emoji.

On Twitter, some employees were angry with Mr. Agrawal, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. He told workers he could not share information about the deal with Mr. Musk as details were not clear. They also said that he was initially quiet at company meetings and did not engage in an internal employee chat.

Mr Agrawal’s supporters said he was legally restricted from sharing information about the deal, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, and internally expressed disappointment at not being able to say more about the deal. After the deal was signed, Twitter held staff meetings and sent out more than a dozen emails to keep employees informed. Last week, Twitter allowed employees to ask Vijaya Gadde, head of legal and policy, and Ned Segal, chief financial officer, about the deal.

Mr. Agrawal’s advocates said he was more sociable and attractive in smaller group settings. They added that their change was long overdue, especially in a change-resistant company.

In Slack messages and group chats, other employees expressed their excitement over Mr. Musk’s ownership, believing his passion for Twitter could re-energize the company.

But Mr. Agrawal has his detractors. He said at company meetings in recent weeks that sometimes “from this time” nothing will change. People said some employees mocked Mr. Agrawal’s comments by creating these reassuring memes.

Several people said that many employees remain uncertain about their future at the company. Some said they were also annoyed by the golden parachutes that Mr. Agrawal and other senior executives would receive if they were fired after the deal with Mr. Musk was closed.

Mr. Agrawal told his confidants that he would carry out his plans rather than wait for Mr. Musk to take over. After that cut spending and this month he tried to rally workers by freezing nearly all hiring at the company.

“At this time of change, it is critical that we continue to strengthen our work through increased accountability and execution to make Twitter all it can be,” The Times said in an email to employees. “Our purpose is existential.”

Ryan Mac contributing reporting.