Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tried to quell employee anger during a company-wide meeting on Friday, where employees demanded answers about how managers planned to deal with an expected mass exodus prompted by Elon Musk.
The meeting comes after Musk, the CEO of Tesla, who sealed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company, repeatedly criticized Twitter’s content moderation practices and a top executive, who is responsible for setting speech and safety guidelines.
At the internal town hall meeting, executives said the company will monitor employee turnover on a daily basis, but it’s too early to say how the acquisition deal with Musk would affect employee retention.
Musk has urged lenders to cut board and executive salaries, according to sources familiar with the matter, but the exact cost cuts remain unclear. A source said Musk will not make decisions about job cuts until he takes over Twitter.
“I’m tired of hearing about shareholder value and fiduciary duty. What are your honest thoughts on the very high probability that many employees will be out of jobs after signing the contract?” a Twitter worker asked Agrawal in a question read at the meeting.
Agrawal replied that Twitter has always cared about its employees and will continue to do so.
“I believe that the future Twitter organization will continue to care about its impact on the world and its customers,” he said.
Executives said during the meeting that the employee turnover rate has not changed from levels prior to news of Musk’s interest in buying the company.
In recent days, Musk has leveled criticism at Twitter’s top attorney, Vijaya Gadde, a Twitter veteran widely respected in Silicon Valley and known internally as Twitter’s “moral authority.”
On Monday, Gadde reportedly cried during a virtual meeting with the company’s legal and policy teams as she raised concerns about the company’s development.
In response to YouTuber Saajar Enjeti’s tweet about the company’s “top censorship advocate” who once censored the New York Post for a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop content, Musk tweeted: “Having the Twitter account of a major news organization suspended for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.”
Musk’s attack sparked a spate of online harassment against Gadde. Users targeted Gadde, tweet: “Stop it you scum” and “WHITE POWER! WHITE PRIDE!”
Earlier this week, Musk also pushed for end-to-end encryption on the social media platform, sparking concerns from users and lawmakers who fear such protections could make online operations easier for extremists and criminals.
“Twitter DMs should have end-to-end encryption like Signal so nobody can spy on or hack your messages,” he tweeted On Wednesday.
Employees told executives they fear Musk’s erratic behavior could destabilize Twitter’s business and hurt it financially as the company prepares to address the advertising world in a presentation next week in New York City.
“Do we have a short-term strategy for dealing with advertisers who are withdrawing investments?” asked one employee.
Sarah Personette, Twitter’s chief customer officer, said the company is working to communicate frequently with advertisers and reassure them “that the way we serve our customers is not changing.”
After the meeting, a Twitter official told Reuters there was little confidence in what the executives said.
“The PR talk doesn’t land. You’ve told us we don’t lick and do a job you’re proud of, but there’s no clear incentive for employees to do so,” the employee told Reuters, noting that the pay for non-executives Employees are now limited due to the deal.
According to research firm Equilar, Agrawal should be paid an estimated $42 million if he’s fired within 12 months of a change of control at the social media company.
During the meeting, Agrawal urged employees to anticipate changes in the future under new leadership, acknowledging that the company could have done better over the years.
“Yes, we could have done it differently and better. I could have done many things differently. I think about it a lot,” he said.
On Friday, Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey took advantage of that writing platform: “I’ve been trying to take a break from Twitter recently, but I have to say: the company has always tried to do their best with the information they had. Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility*. In the cases where we were wrong or went too far, we admitted it and worked to correct it.”
He added: “A transparent system, both politically and operationally, is the right way to gain trust. Whether it’s corporate or open protocol doesn’t matter, nor does the conscious decision to speak openly about every decision and the reason for it. It’s not easy, but it has to happen.”
Dorsey also wrote that he didn’t think permanent bans were right, except for those pertaining to criminal activity. “Therefore, we need a protocol that is resilient to the layers above,” he explained.
Twitter declined further comment.