Twitter’s top executives are set to exit with $100 mn payout as Musk takes over

Like many top leaders at big public companies, Agrawal and his lieutenants were entitled to severance equal to a year’s salary and cash-outs of unvested equity awards if Twitter was bought and they lost their jobs in the process, according to the terms of the company’s severance policy. Twitter must also cover their health insurance premiums for a year, amounting to about $31,000 each.

Critics often point out the unfairness of granting bosses gilded exit packages while normal employees who lose their jobs after a merger or buyout hardly get as soft of a landing. Defenders of golden parachutes say they let executives focus on what’s best for shareholders instead of worrying about whether they’ll be replaced if a deal is struck.

In the case of Agrawal, 38, who had been at Twitter for almost a decade, he held firm that the company see through Musk’s acquisition at $54.20 per share even though the Tesla Inc. co-founder said he didn’t have confidence in management. Text messages unveiled during the lawsuit over the deal show that the two had a contentious text exchange early on in the process after Musk asked his followers whether Twitter was “dying.”

A Twitter representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.