Twitter CEO pushes out top execs, freezes hiring

Twitter is shaking up its top leadership. The first move came as consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour announced on Twitter that current CEO Parag Agrawal “asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.” The New York Times reports that in an email to employees, Agrawal announced Bruce Falck, the general manager of revenue and head of product for its business side, is leaving. In the email he said the company is pausing most hiring and pulling back on spending, but is not currently planning layoffs.

Now Jay Sullivan, who we spoke to in March about Twitter’s plans to add 100 million new users, will take over as head of product and interim head of revenue.

Bloomberg included the text of the email, which cites failures to hit audience and revenue goals as reasons for the changes. Agrawal wrote, “At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the decision was made to invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue, and as a company we did not hit intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals.”

As its product leader and, most recently, GM of consumer, Beykpour has led the development of many of its biggest features and design changes over the last several years. It’s a surprising change: Agrawal just reorganized his executive team a few months ago with the exit of Twitter’s design and engineering leads, leaving Beykpour at the top of consumer products.

Beykpour has been at Twitter since 2015 after it acquired Periscope, the livestreaming company he co-founded. As Twitter folded Periscope’s livestreaming features into its main app, Beykpour shifted into the larger company, becoming its head of consumer product in 2018 and overseeing an unusually productive period of feature launches in the years that followed. Periscope was finally shut down last year.

The Verge has reached out to Twitter for comment.

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