Is Elon Musk going to back out of his Twitter takeover? The company's current CEO appears to disagree.
Hours after Musk unexpectedly decided to abandon his takeover effort, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote a thread on Friday addressing the company's difficulties.
"While I expect the acquisition to conclude," Agrawal said, "we must be prepared for all eventualities and always do what is best for Twitter." "I'm in charge of leading and operating Twitter, and our mission is to make Twitter better every day."
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 made the comment while explaining why he sacked two corporate leaders and put a hiring freeze in place this week. "Some have questioned why a 'lame-duck' CEO would make these adjustments if we're already going to be purchased," he wrote. "No one at Twitter is working only to keep the lights turned on," Agrawal answered.
"We are proud of what we do." We're here to improve Twitter as a product and business for customers, partners, shareholders, and all of you, regardless of the company's future ownership," he said.
Agrawal is also motivated by the difficult economic situation in the United States. "Some have also questioned why control expenditures now rather than after the close? "Right now, our industry is in a really hard macro climate," he remarked. "Neither I nor any other Twitter leader will use the acquisition as an excuse to postpone making critical decisions for the company's health."
Musk has temporarily halted his takeover effort, citing concerns that Twitter may be undercounting the number of spam and false accounts on the network. "Twitter contract currently on hold for details supporting computation that spam/fake accounts do indeed comprise fewer than 5% of users," he stated in an early Friday morning tweet.
In a follow-up tweet, he said, "Still committed to acquisition."
Nonetheless, the temporary halt has many wondering if he intends to pull out of the pact. Musk had intended to fund the takeover effort with $21 billion in Tesla stock that he owned. Another $12.5 billion was expected to be raised through margin loans secured by Musk's assets. Tesla's stock has dropped from $1,028 to $769 in value since then.
If the transaction goes through, Musk is likely to replace Agrawal with someone else. According to Reuters, Musk has already appointed a new CEO to manage Twitter. Meanwhile, Agrawal has hinted that he intends to speak out more about his attempts to improve Twitter.
"So, what might you anticipate from me in the future? He then added(Opens in a new window): "I will also attempt to bring more openness to the work that we perform."
"You won't see tweets from me about the 'subject of the day' or the loudest sound bite," Agrawal said. "Rather, you'll see tweets about the continuing, constant, and tough work our teams are doing to enhance the public dialogue on Twitter."