In addition to his promotion, Twitter’s new CEO will be paid handsomely.
According to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Parag Agrawal, who served as the social network’s chief technical officer until Jack Dorsey’s stunning departure on Monday, will be paid a $1 million yearly salary.
Agrawal, 37, will also be eligible for an annual performance bonus of up to 150 percent of his base salary, bringing his total compensation to $2.5 million per year. Agrawal was also given a $12.5 million stock award that will vest in 16 equal quarterly increments starting February 1, 2022.
Agrawal’s remuneration is a long cry from the $1.40 per year that his predecessor received in recent years. In a filing, Twitter said Dorsey took a lower compensation to signify “his commitment to and belief in Twitter’s long-term value creation potential.” According to Bloomberg, he is currently worth more than $12 billion.
CNBC reported Monday that Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software engineer and ascended through the ranks to become one of Dorsey’s closest partners in charting the company’s future.
Agrawal has been a key contributor to Dorsey’s Effort Bluesky, an open-source project aimed at making disparate social media networks interact similarly to email. According to CNBC in 2019, the long-term objective is to allow users of various social networks to engage with one another seamlessly.
According to his bio, as CTO, Agrawal assisted in the creation of Twitter’s artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, which aided in the company’s growth.
“While it was a decade ago, those days feel like yesterday to me,” Agrawal wrote in an email to employees after being announced as CEO. “I’ve walked in your shoes, I’ve seen the ups and downs, the challenges and obstacles, the wins and the mistakes. But then and now, above all else, I see Twitter’s incredible impact, our continued progress, and the exciting opportunities ahead of us.”