Twitter freezes hiring, ousts 2 top executives amid Elon Musk purchase

Two top Twitter executives have been ousted weeks after Elon Musk made his offer to buy the company.

In a memo Thursday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter general manager, and Bruce Falck, general manager for revenue, are both leaving the company, The New York Times reports.

Beykpour said on Twitter he was "interrupting my paternity leave" to share the news of his departure, which "wasn't my decision." He added that Agrawal asked him to step aside because "he wants to take the team in a different direction."

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"It's critical to have the right leaders at the right time," Agrawal told employees, per The Verge.

In the memo, the Twitter CEO also said the company made the decision in early 2020 to "invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue" but has failed to hit "intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals." Relatedly, Twitter will pause most hiring and pull back on non-labor costs, he announced.

Musk's deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion was accepted on April 25, and he has said he plans to increase the company's revenue from $5 billion to $26.4 billion by 2028. Some of his proposals include potentially charging websites a fee to quote or embed tweets from verified accounts. He says he plans to take Twitter private, though according to The Wall Street Journal, Musk told potential investors he could take it public again in "as little as three years." The deal has not yet closed.