The three top Twitter executives whom Elon Musk fired Thursday will walk out the door with about $187 million of Musk’s money.
Former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal and former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde were ousted after Musk took control of the company late Thursday, according to a source familiar with the situation.
They would have received a large chunk of that money even if they had stayed on board under the new ownership – they and other shareholders will receive payouts from Musk after he bought their shares for $54.20 each.
Agrawal, who only assumed the CEO title a little less than a year ago, had the smallest stock holdings of the three: 155,000 shares worth $8.4 million at the price Musk paid. Segal will get $22 million for the 406,000 shares he owns while Gadde will walk away with $34.8 million for her 642,000 shares.
But they also receive “Golden Parachute Compensation” in the merger agreement approved by shareholders. That includes a year’s base pay – $1 million for Agrawal and $600,000 each for Segal and Gadde. They also will get a year of health insurance, worth about $73,000 among the three.
The most lucrative part by far is the accelerated vesting of stock they stood to receive in the future but had not yet qualified for. That will end up being worth $56.4 million for Agrawal, $43.8 million for Segal and $19.4 million for Gadde. Agrawal and Segal get the accelerated vesting of all of their shares while Gadde gets accelerated vesting of only half of her shares.
Added up, the parachute payments come to $121.8 million. Add on the $65.2 million for the purchase of the shares they already own and you get $187 million.
