Mind you, I don’t think any of this will happen, and neither do the people I spoke to. But what has become clear is that Agrawal, who was Twitter’s chief technology officer before ascending to the role of CEO, is in way over his head.
Turns out that starting a public pissing match with the world’s reigning king of Twitter pissing matches isn’t such a great idea. After news broke about the whistleblower, for example, Agrawal sent an email to employees that read like it had been pulled right out of the. “I know this is frustrating and confusing to read, given Mudge was accountable for many aspects of this work that he is now inaccurately portraying more than six months after his termination,” Agrawal wrote in the letter. In other words: This isn’t true, but if it is, it’s his fault, not mine.
The complaint filed by Zatko also makes Agrawal look worse than anyone else at the company. It alleges that after Dorsey “stepped down” in November 2021 , Zatko informed the board that “protections for sensitive user data were weaker than they had been told.” It was then, according to the complaint, that Agrawal fired Zatko.
To be fair, the chaos at Twitter long preceded Agrawal. I should know: I’ve spent my career documenting it. But over the last six months, the insanity has reached a crescendo, and Agrawal’s actions have sometimes fanned the flames. When the Musk deal was falling through, Agrawal decided to post a Twitter thread