37-year- old Parag Agrawal, an alumnus of IIT Mumbai’s Central School, has been named as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey‘s successor. With this, Twitter joins Alphabet, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, and VMWare as the sixth big IT company headed by an Indian-origin leader worldwide.
Congratulatory messages across social media have been pouring in for Agrawal since his appointment as Twitter CEO on Monday November 29 as he was lauded by many tech firm leaders around the world.
USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 29, 2021
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, applauded the Indian talents in America, following the appointment of Parag Agrawal as the next CEO of Twitter.
“USA benefits greatly from Indian talent!” Musk said in a tweet. The entrepreneur was replying to a tweet on how Indian-origin persons are now at the helm of some of the top tech companies like Microsoft, Google and IBM.
“Congrats @paraga So proud of you!! Big day for us, celebrating this news,” tweeted Indian singer Shreya Ghoshal.
Chairman and team member of Mahindra Group, Anand Mishra, tweeted that, “This is one pandemic that we are happy & proud to say originated in India. It’s the Indian CEO Virus… No vaccine against it.”
Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group too praised the achievement tweeting “Another great moment for India’s depth of talent and USA’s meritocracy system. Congrats @paraga on your unanimous selection as CEO. You will do @Twitter & @jack proud. After Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe, Flex, VMware and more, yet another Indian rises to lead the digital world.”
Another great moment for India’s depth of talent and USA’s meritocracy system. Congrats @paraga on your unanimous selection as CEO. You will do @Twitter & @jack proud. After Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe, Flex, VMware and more, yet another Indian rises to lead the digital world. https://t.co/KmVbzHlAma
— Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) November 30, 2021
Tamil Nadu BJP IT Cell head C.T.R. Nirmal Kumar tweeted in response to this Tweet that, “Soon PM narendramodi #MakeInIndia program will create good opportunity for all these talents to work In India & grow India. We also welcome you to be part of this #MakeInIndia program @elonmusk.”
Supporting the achievement, few users commented to wait until another Indian origin becomes the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Many pointed out that leading global tech corporations are now led by people of Indian origin.
However, Twitter users came up with hilarious comments and criticised on Agarwal’s appointment as CEO.
A twitter user commented stating, “The question is, when would India benefit from this supposed “Indian talent”. I am done cheerleading for these Indian immigrants who work timeously to uphold American hegemony. Even I want to see my own country prosper.”
Indians welcoming #ParagAgarwal as CEO of Twitter pic.twitter.com/1q8FymCHpO
— Sagar Budhwani ?? (@Sagarbudhwani_) November 29, 2021
One Twitter user posted an image of Rajinikanth to highlight the achievement of Indian CEOs worldwide.
A user suggested that the new CEO change Twitter’s logo to ‘Agrawal Tweet Bhandar,’ a reference to the country’s many Agarwal stores. Another user posted an image of a sweets place renamed to ‘tweets’ place.
Another user made a fun meme asking Agrawal to fix bugs and glitches in Twitter.
Twitter users asking #ParagAgrawal to fix bugs and glitches, *le parag agrawal: pic.twitter.com/yqiw3FnQZE
— Deera (@Deerahahaha) November 29, 2021
Few even brought up a decade old tweet of Agrawal, which suggest that he believe all white people are racist. However, Agrawal emphasised in the post that he was just quoting comedian Aasif Mandvi, who said something similar on the Daily Show.
“I was quoting Asif Mandvi from The Daily Show. The article you are reading seems too deep for my current mental state. People had mixed reaction to the appointment of Agrawal as Twitter CEO,“ he tweeted in 2010.
It was in 2005, Parag Agrawal relocated to the United States. He joined Twitter in 2011 and 10 years later, he has been appointed as the CEO of Twitter while he was still doing his PhD. According to sources, Parag will be paid a total of USD 1 million per year as CEO of Twitter, as well as a total of USD 12.5 million in stock compensation.
