Ever since agreeing to be sold to Elon Musk for $44 billion, Twitter (TWTR)'s been in a constant state of upheaval — amid rising employee concern over their futures at the company, two of the platform's big leaders have been pushed out.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has, according to an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, asked General Manager of Consumer Kayvon Beykpour and General Manager of Revenue Bruce Falck to leave the company for vague reasons explained as the need to "have the right leaders at the right time."
Unexpected Move
"The truth is that this isn't how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision," Beykpour wrote in a thread on his Twitter account. "Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction."
Beykpour joined Twitter in 2015 after it acquired Periscope, a live video app he co-founded. Falck joined Twitter in 2017. He had previously been CEO of Turn.
The Interim General Manager of Consumer Product, Jack Sullivan, will reportedly replace Beykpour who tweeted "congratulations to @jaysullivan...I know Bluebird is in great hands under your leadership."
Beykpour's tweet, in which he said he was interrupting his paternity leave to announce his unexpected departure, sent shockwaves through the community within minutes of it being published in the early afternoon of May 12.
"Kayvon was one of the best things that ever happened to Twitter," Sam Sheffer wrote as others speculated that the Musk-era exodus had already begun. "This is a very bizarre thing to see unfold."
Hiring Freeze
The memo also said that Twitter was freezing all hiring and moving to cut costs. So far, information on what that will look like beyond cutting non-labor costs is sparse.
Such cuts are in line with what is happening at many technology companies that are currently suffering withdrawal symptoms from a pandemic profitability boom.
Facebook parent Meta (MVRS) announced that it would slow down hiring to cut costs and realign its strategy going forward on May 5. Three days later, Uber (UBER) cited a "seismic shift" in investor sentiment as the reason to significantly slow its hiring.
But while this could merely signal a restructuring for many companies -- job listings are up and unemployment in the tech industry is at 1.3% compared to 3.6% nationwide -- Twitter is different given the huge change that is inevitable as the company goes from public to private.
The memo reportedly did not mention any layoffs of existing positions.
Musk has previously told investors that he wants to grow Twitter's revenue fivefold by 2028. While he said that he plans to do so by cutting executive and board pay, such a big profitability goal also makes large-scale layoffs extremely likely.
In the same week, Musk has also said that he would reverse the Twitter ban on former President Donald Trump.
