There's a new shakeup happening at the top of Twitter. CEO Parag Agrawal has fired the company’s general manager of consumer products Kayvon Beykpour in order to "take the team in a different direction." Bruce Falck, the company’s general manager for revenue, is also leaving, the company confirmed. Beykpour, who had been with the company for seven years, was on paternity leave at the time.
The shakeup comes alongside a companywide pause on hiring as Twitter tries to cut costs. A spokesperson said the company is “pausing most hiring” and “pulling back on non-labor costs.” It will likely fuel more uncertainty at Twitter, which has been reeling since the company accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company. Agrawal has reportedly told employees the company's current execs don’t know what direction Musk will take the platform. Musk has said he has no confidence in Twitter’s current management, and that he has a new CEO in mind for when the deal closes.
Despite all that, Agrawal is making big changes of his own. Most notably, by firing Beykpour, a longtime product executive who is well-liked in and outside of Twitter. “The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision,” he wrote in a thread about his departure. “Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.”
The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision. Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 12, 2022
In a memo, Agrawal cited the company’s failure to hit goals for revenue and user growth, The New York Timesreported. Musk has made clear he has even more aggressive goals for the platform. He recently stated that he intends to grow Twitter’s user base to nearly a billion users by 2028.
Twitter isn't the only major platform looking to cut costs. Meta has also said it intends to pull back on its hiring plans, and has ended some projects in its Reality Labs division.