Twitter's top bosses will get $122 million in 'golden parachute' payouts

New Delhi, November 1: Twitter's top executives, including Parag Agrawal and Vijaya Gadde, will be entitled to "golden parachute" payouts worth more than $122 million (USD) after being fired by the company's new owner, Elon Musk.

A "golden parachute" is essentially a contract which entitles top executives of a company to substantial benefits in case they lose their jobs following a merger, takeover or acquisition. This measure is also known as a 'poison pill' since it can act as a safeguard against hostile takeovers. In August, US-based corporate research firm Equilar had estimated that ex-CEO Paras Agrawal alone could receive a $42 million payout if he is terminated after the takeover.

Agrawal is likely to receive the largest payout, worth $57.4 million.

The debt-funded deal has become a costly exercise even for Elon Musk, the world's richest man. Legal costs in particular are likely to have run into the tens of millions of dollars after Musk tried to terminate the deal with Twitter in July, arguing that the company had misled him over the number of bot accounts on the social network.

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Agrawal is likely to receive the largest payout, worth $57.4 million, while Segal and Gedde are entitled to $44.5 million and $20 million respectively, according to company filings.

The three executives also hold a cumulative 1.2 million shares, which are likely to be bought by Musk as is standard in any takeover. Those payments would be worth USD 8.4 million to Agrawal, USD 22 m to Segal and USD 34.8 million to Gadde.

After closing the $44 billion acquisition deal, Elon Musk has started to reform the policies of the micro-blogging platform and is wasting no time remodelling it by cutting off employees, and introducing plans for a council to determine content decisions, The Hill reported.

In one of the first few changes, he purged the top executives of the company as soon as he closed the expected deal in which Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal left the company's San Francisco headquarters. 

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