From Tweetstorms to Algorithms: Ex-Twitter Chief Agrawal Banks $30 Million for AI Play

10 Jan 2024 , 12:18 PM

Parag Agrawal, the former CEO of Twitter who is of Indian descent, has reportedly raised $30 million for his firm and is entering the artificial intelligence (AI) race.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter (now called X), fired Agrawal in late 2022.  He went on to raise roughly $30 million for an AI firm, according to The Information.

One of the first investors in OpenAI, Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures, ‘led the funding in Agrawal’s company, which hasn’t been publicly disclosed,’ the article said.

The article states that two additional venture firms, Index Ventures and First Round Capital, were also involved in the transaction.

Agrawal’s business is purportedly creating software for large language model developers, a market made popular by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

Late last year, Musk-owned X Corp. paid Agrawal, former policy lead Vijaya Gadde, and other officials $1.1 million in legal fees.

As he assumed control of the microblogging network for $44 billion, Musk notified Agrawal, Gadde, and former Twitter chief financial officer Ned Segal that their employment with the firm had ended in October 2022.

These three high-ranking executives reportedly received an exit package from Twitter worth between $90-100 million.

Due in significant part ‘to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing,’ Agrawal was slated to get the greatest compensation, estimated to be approximately $40 million.

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