All these details have come out in an excerpt of the book, which has been written by Walter Isaacson, a popular biography writer who spent three years trailing the Tesla CEO for his biography ‘Elon Musk’. Published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the excerpt of the book has revealed details about the fateful meeting in which Musk saw what Agarwal lacked. And, ultimately, led to the sacking of the Indian-origin CEO. The hugely anticipated book will be published on September 12.
Twitter’s then board chair, Bret Taylor, was also present at the dinner meeting, Isaacson further said.
Both Musk and Agarwal exchanged cordial messages after the meeting, which were released in September 2022 as part of the lawsuit Twitter filed against Musk.
“Hey Elon – great to be connected directly. Would love to chat,” Agrawal wrote in a message to Musk on March 27, 2022.
“Great dinner :),” Musk responded.But things went downhill in April when Musk fired off a tweet from Hawaii: “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?”After 90 minutes, Agarwal sent Musk a text message: “You are free to tweet ‘Is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter, but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.”
Though the message was polite and carefully worded, Elon Musk shot back, “What did you get done this week?” It was the ultimate Musk put-down, according to the WSJ report.
The billionaire also said in another message, “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”
Agarwal asked if he could talk to Musk. Then the Twitter board chair also sought “five minutes” to talk. But he answered, “Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work. Drastic action is needed.”