Tesla CEO Elon Musk has triggered yet another controversy after comparing India-born Twitter CEO Prag Agrawal with former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Taking a dig at the leadership transition process within Twitter, Musk implied that Agrawal had ruthlessly purged Dorsey, his former boss.
Musk shared two photoshopped images with Parag’s face being superimposed on that of Stalin. The face of Dorsey, who resigned this week to make way for Agrawal, was superimposed on that of Stalin’s top execution officer, Nikolai Yezhov.
While Agrawal and Dorsey could be seen walking together alongside a canal, the latter disappeared in the next frame, implying that the India-born CEO had thrown him in the water body as indicated by the splashing of water.
Yezhov served as the head of Stalin’s secret service in the erstwhile Soviet Union. He allegedly executed more than five lakh Soviet citizens during what was known as the ‘great purge.’ They were mostly Stalin’s critics. Stalin’s photos were later neatly updated after Yezhov himself was executed to remove the ‘poison dwarf.’
Stalin was known to be one of the most brutal dictators the history has ever seen in the 20th century.
Musk has never shied away from expressing his admiration for Dorsey. Last year, he had tweeted, “Just want say that I support @Jack as Twitter CEO. He has a good .”
Just want say that I support @Jack as Twitter CEO. He has a good ❤️.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 3, 2020
Agrawal was named the new CEO of Twitter after Dorsey was forced to step down from the post under pressure from the company’s investors. Son of an employee of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Agrawal is an alumnus of IIT Bombay. He later acquired a degree from Stanford University.
His appointment to the coveted post means Silicon Valley has one more India-born CEO after Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Google.
Agrawal had joined Twitter in 2011. He had previously worked for Microsoft, Yahoo and AT&T.