Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is getting more aggressive with the company's push for Elon Musk to follow through on his planned acquisition, according to a Financial Times report.
The reserved CEO has become more outspoken about the acquisition in front of staffers and tech executives, the FT said, citing several current and former Twitter staffers. In one instance, Agrawal defended himself at a dinner hosted by Salesforce's Marc Benioff. Agrawal also been more present in the office recently and recently toured a few global headquarters.
One former exec said, "It seems Twitter is willing to go to war to make this deal happen," while another said he believes Agrawal is becoming a “sacrificial lamb" for the company.
Agrawal is at odds with a far less reserved leader, Musk, whose team now apparently believes the deal is in jeopardy because they can't figure out the exact number of spam accounts on Twitter. But in private, sources said, Agrawal and Musk hold rather civil meetings and agree on most of the ways Twitter should be run with respect to growing its audience and adopting more lenient content moderation rules.
In a sense, Agrawal has his hands tied. Investors and board members have raised concerns about his ability to see the deal through, as someone who lacks experience leading a public company — and Twitter is adamant about completing the acquisition, so Agrawal's public defense mechanisms make sense. As the Times points out, wrapping up the deal would help Twitter's reputation, ensure the company and Musk don't go to court and hand Agrawal a little over $60 million if he was fired as part of the takeover (Musk would reportedly become Twitter CEO if the deal goes through).
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