Years before Elon Musk set his sights on Twitter, Parag Agrawal, a senior engineering executive at the social media company, was asked in a joint meeting what his hobbies were. He nervously replied that he liked growing plants in water, without soil.
Now, as the brash CEO of Tesla and SpaceX moves forward in the fit-out and begins his acquisition of Twitter, the harsh focus on Agrawal is forcing him to flex new muscles as CEO. His six-month tenure has been an unusual test of his leadership skills.
So far, Agrawal has shown signs of greater resolve than might be expected based on his low-profile MO. He is also quicker to adopt changes than his predecessor, co-founder Jack Dorsey. In his first week in office he fired two senior executives and created a new management structure. In May he fired two other deputies he had just elevated and promoted Jay Sullivan, vice president of product, to general manager of Twitter’s consumer business and interim general manager of revenue. Less publicly, Agrawal created new company-wide performance metrics and ways to measure the speed of product launches, with the goal of holding teams accountable, a person familiar with the changes said.
