The Twitter firings: several Twitter executives are forced to relinquish their extraordinary power
Musk has given several Twitter executives the boot:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired several top Twitter executives after officially taking control of the company Thursday evening.
A source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety were fired. Musk had accused the three of misleading him and investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.
I guess they were giving him disinformation.
No doubt they’re very upset at his acquisition and their firing, and I don’t think it’s just because they lost their jobs. They will be hired by someone else and continue to make a lot of money, I can almost guarantee.
I think it’s because they lost these jobs. What enormous power they wielded, at such a crucial time!
An article from Politico from last April:
Shortly after billionaire Elon Musk bought the powerful social media platform, top Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde called a virtual meeting with the policy and legal teams she oversees to discuss what the new ownership could mean for them.
Gadde cried during the meeting as she expressed concerns about how the company could change, according to three people familiar with the meeting. She acknowledged that there are significant uncertainties about what the company will look like under Musk’s leadership…
Gadde herself has advocated strongly for ensuring that Twitter’s policies protect its most vulnerable users while protecting free expression — a position that is at odds with Musk’s.
Protecting free expression? Excuse me?
The article also mentions Gadde’s decision to throttle the Hunter Biden story, without also noting for the reader that the story was true and would have hurt Biden in the 2020 the election. Instead, it uses a version of the “Republicans pounce” angle.
From Gadde’s Wiki page (she is 48 years old, by the way):
She is known for her involvement in decisions and policies taken by Twitter, such as the approach taken to issues such as harassment and harmful speech, and controversial decisions made by Twitter, such as suspending the New York Post for a story on Hunter Biden before the 2020 election, and preventing users from sharing the story in private messages…
In 2014, she was described by Fortune as the most powerful woman on Twitter’s executive team, though she was later joined by Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland. In October 2020, Politico profiled her as “the most powerful technology executive you’ve never heard of”.
Well, I’ve heard of her now.
2020 must have been a very exciting and rewarding time for her:
She was one of the key officials at Twitter involved in decisions to suspend the account of former American President Donald Trump.
Gadde earned nearly $17 million in 2021 as Twitter’s chief legal officer, and earned roughly $7.3 million in 2020.
It will certainly be interesting to see what happens to Twitter now. Some people are tentatively trying out the new regime and the supposedly new rules; for example:
First full day of Elon's Twitter. Testing… Testing…
The vaccines don't stop you from catching COVID.
Men cannot have babies.
If you have to show your ID to get on a plane you should show it to vote.
Joe Biden has obvious cognitive issues.
(hits "Tweet" and holds breath)— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) October 28, 2022
Good riddance. These execs had contracts and will be paid large sums to leave. Lower-level employees, the ones actually involved in censorship, will get two weeks or whatever the law requires in their localities. One would think the idiots who signed that “demand” letter will be first to go.
I’m willing to give Elon Musk the benefit of the doubt. The guy is certainly a bit crazy, but he seems to genuinely want to make Twitter into a platform which respects the concept of freedom of speech. These firings are a good start. I hope he really does jetison 75% of the workforce. Most of the Twitter workforce appears to be community managers/moderators anyway, in other words: low technical skill workers and therefore very replacable.
Good riddance indeed! Agrawal and Gadde (both born in India) will receive unmerited and unseemly severance packages, but their dismissal was imperative, as both were completely hostile to the idea of freedom of expression and, in fact, wielded their enormous power over discourse in the public square purely for ideological purposes under the guise, in the manner of Biden’s failed Czarina, of fighting some noble crusade against “disinformation” and “misinformation” while allowing countless leftist “blue-checks” to post endless fabrications and idiocies with no fear of suspension.
I first heard of Vijaya Gadde when she accompanied her then boss, Jack Dorsey, who had been invited onto Joe Rogan’s Podcast. Tim Pool was also in the room. I got the impression that when Rogan learned Dorsey was brining Twitter’s head legal consul Rogan reached out to Pool to assist on the interview.
It was an awful interview, mainly because of Gadde. She was surprisingly non-glib for an attorney although she was also, obviously, very intelligent (or, at least clever). One could observe how she was adapting and adjusting her answers to obfuscate and obscure from the actual truth. She played a sort-of bad cop to Dorsey’s good cop routine, which was also disconcerting because it was obvious she was obfuscating and Dorsey knows everything she knows, so it became obvious his claims to be an advocate for free speech were lies.
They’ll all come out with nice severance packages and not just Two weeks. I have lots of family and friends in Bay Area tech jobs-everything you hear about massages, free meals daily, etc etc is all true. They will do ok-unless Biden tanks the economy further. Then maybe the children of summer will learn there are bigger concerns in life than mean tweets or pronouns.
Apparently I’m wrong- what they got at Twitter is WAY beyond what anyone I know experienced. WTH??
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1585395267552960512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1585660078421692419%7Ctwgr%5E4aa7a6fcd173d2686cd965c829595ca3e7337b81%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F
I don’t use Twitter. Will probably (never say never) never use Twitter. A tweet is usually some quick thought, which cannot be fully rounded out in 280 characters. Good for passing along gossip, rumors, propaganda, and insults. When censored by political partisans, it becomes a useful narrative for controlling the public. As with all social media, it’s a tool for marketers and advertisers. Users think it’s free. What they don’t realize is that their information is the product that pays the bills. Eventually, social media has a possibility of becoming the primary tool for government monitoring of all citizens.
I hope Musk is successful in making it an honest forum. But I don’t intend to use it.
Corporate boards are mostly aligned with Executive management AND the “independent” firms corporations engage to review and approve their Executive compensation packages. The system is ripe for abuse and most boards and executives abuse it. The shareholders are supposed to be the ultimate check to this system, but for myriad reasons that typically doesn’t work.
These three were paid obscene salaries and now have obscene severance income. If either of them feel anything but immense privilege and gratitude for their situation they need to spend a few moments in the real world and have their attitudes readjusted.
If I see one more left wing idiot on Twitter try to mansplain me into thinking our country is a democracy rather than a republic, I’ll scream.
What JJ said. I’ve never used Twitter, won’t in the future– but I do wish Musk success in cleaning out the Augean stable.
The fired execs were paid liars, censors and propagandists. They know it. We know it. They’re sleaze. They worked hard to enable election theft and the implementation of policies that killed many people unnecessarily. In a just world, they’d spend the rest of their lives in prison. We don’t live in a just world.
Conservatives are enjoying running amok on Twitter right now. I guess they feel, collectively, as if they’ve just had a cast removed or something. I don’t have a Twitter account and probably never will, but I do enjoy browsing a few select accounts for their wit and pithiness:
“David Burge – @iowahawkblog
Successful social media companies begin in a shed with 12 coders, and end up in a sumptuous glass tower with 1200 HR staffers, 2000 product managers, 5000 salespeople, 20 gourmet chefs, and 12 coders.“
Iowahawk nails it. Pithy and funny.
Get a load of this video posted by a Twitter employee:
–“Day in my life at the Twitter office!”
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1585395267552960512
That’s luxury few can afford.
I’ve worked at some fancy hi-tech companies, but the amenities never went beyond Aeron chairs and a rec room with a ping-pong table plus free snacks. The better to keep you onsite and working.
I saw something like the Twitter scene when I visited the San Francisco Google office in the late 2000s. I made sure to grab a cold Starbucks vanilla latte drink and an extra for the road.
According to a report out today these execs severance payouts range from $25 to $50 million each, with Dorsey to receive $1 billion in cash, so don’t weep for them.
“If I see one more left wing idiot on Twitter try to mansplain me into thinking our country is a democracy rather than a republic, I’ll scream.” Alan Colbo
They want it to be a democracy instead of a republic and that’s why they act as if it is already a democracy. Democracies are essentially collectivist and the left is decidedly collectivist.
“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%”. Allegedly stated by Thomas Jefferson.
Does anyone else get an uneasy feeling when EVERYONE on the left started saying “Our democracy “? Our democracy implies not your democracy. I remember when democracy was referred to as American democracy. Open to all Americans, inclusive not exclusive. Man, the left is pushing hard these days.
Re: Democrats and “democracy.”
I dunno. I hear the “democracy” talking points as part of “I pledge allegiance to the narrative…”
They aren’t thinking about the nice differences between a democracy and a republic. They are framing the issue as between good and evil, free society vs. dictatorship. That’s obvious … to them.
Never mind that they are wrong any number of ways from Sunday,
“Twitter losers: learn to weld!”
Seen on the internet…
When they talk about “democracy”, it is enlightening to consider that the Left believes that once the vote is taken, all must submit to the “collective will” as The One True Way – it has been decided!
To them, democracy is submission … and dissent can only be the result of ignorance or evil, in their calculus,
They forget that unalienable rights are beyond the reach of a majority vote, in a free society.
JimNorCal, I doubt that they can even solder …
Re: … the Left believes …
Not to pick on Jester Naybor, but that’s not what the Left believes. That’s what someone on the Right would have to believe if that person said what the Left said.
So far, neo is the only other person here who gets what the Left believes.
What the Left believes is foolish and inconsistent at any number of levels but it does rationalize their position with some success.
It might be useful if those on the Right understood better how the Left mind works.
stan-
I agree.