As the world continued to react to the developments of Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout, company CEO Parag Agrawal attempted to quell employee concerns by hosting an internal town hall meeting on Friday.
Employees voiced a variety of concerns, ranging from personal salary to potential investor back-outs, not long after Musk made his pitch to banks tied to the $44 million acquisition.
“I’m tired of hearing about shareholder value and fiduciary duty,” asserted a Twitter employee to Agrawal during the meeting. “What are your honest thoughts about the very high likelihood that many employees will not have jobs after the deal closes?”
“I believe the future Twitter organization will continue to care about its impact on the world and its customers,” the CEO responded.
While the details of Musk’s pitch to investors are not legally binding, he did specifically mention company-wide job cuts as a way to slash costs, and grow the business revenue of the platform through the monetization of tweets, according to Bloomberg News. Sources claimed Musk floated charging third-party websites a fee for the rights to quote or embed a tweet posted by verified individuals or organizations.
Higher-ups at the tech company pledged to begin tracking the post-buyout attrition rate, which reportedly remains unchanged since it was reported that Musk was interested in the social media platform.
“The PR speak is not landing,” another Twitter employee told Reuters following the internal meeting. “They told us don’t leak and do a job you are proud of, but there is no clear incentive for employees to do this.”
A same-day report from the outlet cited a source who claimed Musk has already lined up a new CEO to replace Agrawal, who has held the role since Jack Dorsey stepped down late last year. However, the current CEO will remain until Musk’s deal is officially completed, claimed one source.
Per Equilar, a research firm, Agrawal is estimated to receive a $42 million payout if terminated within 12 months of the social media company changing control.
Twitter has said the deal–unanimously approved by the company’s board–will likely close by the end of the year, following shareholder and regulatory approval and “the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.”