In the aftermath of Indian-origin Rishi Sunak’s elevation to the highest position in the UK, the Indian diaspora witnessed an undeserved knock to one of its rising stars.
Parag Aggrawal, the youngest CEO of an S&P company, Twitter, was ingloriously sacked by Twitter’s new owner, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
The sacking was deliberate and uncalled-for, or so believe the vast number of Twitter users in India. Indians all over the globe erupted on social networking sites with tweets and memes that took a light-hearted and serious view of the entire situation.
To give a little context to the story, Parag Aggrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software engineer. He rose in the company’s ranks and was elevated to Chief Technology Officer in 2017. Two years later he was named the in-charge of Twitter’s Project Bluesky. After Jack Dorsey resigned in 2021, Parag was named CEO in November of that year.
The relationship between Musk and Aggrawal was not always sour. When Musk bought a majority stake in Twitter, he was welcomed by Parag, in one of Parag’s more popular tweets on the platform.
At that time, Musk was due to join the Twitter board, however, he did not make the move for reasons best known to him and called for a complete acquisition of the social media network.
Aggrawal ignored this veiled threat.
In due course of time, it became clear that Musk disapproved of the way Parag was running Twitter, raising the question that a large number of the users on Twitter were fake. He mentioned it to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey who later tried to patch things up between the two.
Musk also posted the now infamous tweet “Is Twitter Dying?” that the top users rarely produced content on the site.
Aggrawal answered the attack with a long thread in May 2022. He had said that the company was hard on spam accounts, working sedulously to remove “fake accounts”. However, it was a challenge to find out which accounts were superficially fake. Musk responded with a poop emoji.
This apparently seemed to seal the fate of the young CEO who was soon dubbed “lame-duck CEO”, referring to his sacking if Musk were to pick up Twitter.
On Friday, Musk took over the social networking platform and tweeted: “The bird is freed.”
Post the sacking of Parag Aggrawal, Twitter users, especially Indian ones, who see him as their own, made sure he began to trend with top trending hashtags like:
#ParagAgrawal
#Twittertakeover
#ElonMusk
#TwitterHQ
There was a strong response from both Indian and global users. Some said Aggrawal was against free speech while others took to Twitter to make light of the matter.
But not all Indians were miffed as Paytm’s boss and Chetan Bhagat responded positively to the removal.
However, most people remember the CEO as a man who created the “most shareholder value” in the shortest time possible. The one laurel he may take away with him along with his $42 million firing package.
Musk himself has grand plans for Twitter. He seems keen to create a “digital town square” where people can debate on all matters in a healthy way.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said in a recent statement.
Does this mean former US president Donald Trump will be back on the platform? Elon Musk has indicated as such.
To sum up, what the future holds for the Twitter platform is questionable. Will it really be a place for free speech? Will it allow all kinds of opinions to be expressed without any prejudice or rigging by the company itself? All remains to be seen!
