Twitter’s new CEO will receive a major payday in addition to his promotion.
Parag Agrawal, who served as the social network’s chief technology officer until Jack Dorsey announced his surprise departure on Monday, will receive an annual salary of $1 million, according to documents the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Agrawal, 37, will also be eligible for an annual performance bonus worth as much as 150% of his salary, meaning he could take home up to another $2.5 million per year. Agrawal has also been granted a stock award worth $12.5 million, which will vest in 16 equal quarterly increments beginning February 1, 2022.
Agrawal’s salary is a far cry from the $1.40 annual pay his predecessor earned for the past few years. Dorsey took a lower salary to symbolize “his commitment to and belief in Twitter’s long-term value creation potential,” the company said in a filing. He is currently worth more than $12 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011 as a software engineer and rose through the ranks to become one of Dorsey’s closest partners in charting the future of the company, CNBC reported Monday.
In particular, Agrawal has been a key player in Dorsey’s Project Bluesky, an open-source project whose ultimate goal is to make different social media networks interact similarly to email. The long-term vision, CNBC reported in 2019, is to allow users of different social networks to communicate with one another seamlessly.
As CTO, Agrawal also helped accelerate Twitter’s growth by helping guide the development of its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, according to his bio.
“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.”
Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter
Don’t miss: Elon Musk sold $5.7 billion worth of Tesla shares this week—here’s what you need to know