What you need to know
- Twitter's head of consumer product and general manager of revenue product are leaving the company.
- Kayvon Beykpour, general manager of consumer, revealed that Parag Agrawal asked him to leave because "he wants to take the team in a different direction."
- Twitter is also halting most hiring and reducing spending.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has fired two of its top executives as the company prepares to transition to new ownership under Elon Musk, signaling massive changes ahead of the acquisition.
Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s general manager of consumer product, and Bruce Falck, the revenue product lead, both confirmed in a series of separate tweets that they are leaving the company. Beykpour, who got word of the news while on paternity leave, has revealed that his departure was not his own decision.
"The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision," Beykpour tweeted. "Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction."
Since July 2018, he has served as Twitter's head of consumer product, and most recently as general manager of consumer since December 2021. In that capacity, he oversaw teams in product, engineering, design, research, customer service, and operations.
Although Falck appears to have deleted his separate tweet confirming that he was fired by Agrawal, he did thank the teams he worked with over the last five years.
"I wanted to take a moment to thank all the teams and partners I’ve been lucky enough to work with during the past 5 years," Falck tweeted. "Building and running these businesses is a team sport."
While the reasons for their departure are unknown, Agrawal stated in a memo to employees that Twitter did not meet its audience and revenue growth targets set during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora confirmed to The Verge that Jay Sullivan, the company's vice president of product, will take on both the roles of Falck and Beykpour. It's unclear whether the leadership shuffle is related to Musk's impending takeover.
Twitter is also putting most of its hiring on hold, except for business-critical roles, and slashing its non-labor costs.
