Vijaya Gadde is a prominent American attorney who formerly served as Twitter’s Policy, Safety, Legal Lead Director, Chief Legal Officer, and General Counsel.
Fortune ranked her the most powerful woman on Twitter’s executive team in 2014, although Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland eventually joined her. Politico featured her in October 2020 as “the most powerful technology executive you’ve never heard of.”
Childhood and Education
Gadde was born to a Telugu family in India and moved to the United States when she was three years old. Her father pursued graduate studies in the United States and originally lacked the funds to send for his wife and daughter until Gadde was three years old. Her family relocated to the Texas city of Beaumont.
Her youth was so impacted by the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in Beaumont that her Indian father’s job required him to obtain permission from the local Klan before he could solicit insurance door-to-door.
In the year 2000, Gadde earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial and labor relations from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and a Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law.
What is Vijaya Gadde’s Net Worth?
As of October 2022, Vijaya Gadde has an estimated net worth of $36.4 Million. As Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer, Gadde earned approximately $17 million in 2021 and roughly $7.3 million in 2020.
Gadde holds over 1,814 units of Twitter Inc stock for more than $269,087, and she has sold TWTR shares worth more than $28,234,779 during the past nine years. She earns $7,900,600 as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary at Twitter Inc.
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Vijaya Gadde TWTR Stock SEC Form 4 Insiders Trading
According to Form 4 filings with the SEC, Vijaya has made more than 51 trades of Twitter Inc. stock since 2014. Bloomberg reported that she earned $451,00 in 2014 when she sold 13,346 shares at $33.77 per share. She currently possesses around 848,296 shares. If her shares were valued at the current price of Twitter shares, she would receive $26,297,176.
On 15 June 2022, she most recently exercised 1,814 units of TWTR Stock valued at $74,900. On November 9, 2017, she sold 135,000 shares of Twitter Inc. valued at nearly $2,680,200, which was the largest move she had ever executed.
Since 2013, Vijaya has traded an average of 6,313 units every 23 days. As of 15 June 2022, she continues to own at least 6,517 shares of Twitter Inc.
Where Did She Work Before Joining Twitter?
Before joining Twitter in 2011, Gadde worked at the Silicon Valley legal firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati for over a decade. She was also a senior director in the legal department of Juniper Networks, a Silicon Valley technology company.
During his tenure with WSGR, Gadde worked on the $4.1 billion acquisition of McClatchy Co. by Knight Ridder Inc. in 2006 and served as counsel to the New York Stock Exchange’s Proxy Working Group and Committee on Corporate Governance.
In 2018, she announced Twitter’s intention to hire researchers to examine the platform’s discourse health.
In 2018, Gadde joined Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for meetings in India, where they spoke with a number of Dalit activists about their Twitter experiences; following the meeting, the activists presented Dorsey with a sign that read “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy,” which he was later seen carrying.
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Some critics considered the notion to be discriminatory against Brahmins, while others viewed it as a legitimate response to caste- and gender-based oppression in India. Gadde apologized in a series of tweets in response to the social media uproar: “I’m truly sorry for this.
It does not reflect our views. We took a private shot with a just-received gift; we could have been more considerate. Twitter aspires to be a neutral platform for everyone. We failed to do so here, and we must improve our client service in India.”
In 2019, she persuaded then-CEO Jack Dorsey not to sell political commercials for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a high-profile decision that garnered both praise and condemnation.
She was one of the major Twitter employees engaged in the decision to ban the account of the former president of the United States.
As Twitter’s top legal officer, Gadde earned approximately $17 million in 2021 and roughly $7.3 million in 2020.
In 2022, upon the announcement of Elon Musk‘s takeover of Twitter, Gadde attracted additional interest. Musk challenged Twitter’s current practices, arguing that the company should only remove content when mandated by law, and chastised Gadde for blocking a New York Post article about Hunter Biden.
During a virtual conference with the policy and legal teams, it was alleged that Gadde voiced concerns and discussed considerable uncertainty over Twitter’s future under Musk’s probable leadership.
Musk’s criticism of Gadde sparked controversy owing to the online abuse that Gadde experienced, including racist slurs, and speculation that Musk may have breached the conditions of the takeover deal, which forbade Musk from publishing negative tweets about the firm or its officials.
Musk’s remarks echoed other criticisms of Gadde, particularly from the political right, who have accused her of being Twitter’s “leading censorship champion” for her role in banning the Twitter account of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
It also followed criticism of Twitter’s decision, in which Gadde participated, to restrict people from sharing a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 U.S. presidential race, in which his father, Joe Biden, was a candidate.
Jack Dorsey later deemed this decision to have been inappropriate. Others, including former colleagues and law professor Danielle Citron, have backed Gadde, stating that he recognized the impact of internet harassment.
As Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer, she was the recipient of Elon Musk’s letter of terminating the purchase of Twitter on July 8, 2022. According to The Washington Post, she was fired on October 27, 2022, along with CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
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Vijaya Gadde’s Family
Vijaya Gadde is married to Ramsey Homsany, a lawyer and technology executive who has worked for Dropbox and Google.
Homsany is also the co-founder and president of Octant Bio, a biotechnology research firm whose mission is to enhance medication discovery in the health market.
While she is well-known for her position on Twitter, Vijaya Gadde conceals her connection with her husband Ramsey Homsany, and their family life.
However, previous tweets on the microblogging platform indicate that the couple has two children. According to the Twitter post below, the couple welcomed their first child in 2017 and other one in 2020.
Gadde has previously shared her motherhood experiences on Twitter.
Took my 3 year old to a playground in SF for the first time in over 6 months…it was everything…
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 18, 2020
My baby girl started walking today! So proud and already so nostalgic for her less mobile days. I’m going to have to get my cuddles in FAST! pic.twitter.com/3JyutUpgSX
— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) June 2, 2021
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Vijaya Gadde and Elon Musk Controversy
The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, is bringing back the excitement of the Donald Trump era when Twitter’s CEO would announce “Law” in response to a midnight tweet with a misspelled word. Musk has a harsh and often mischievous sense of humor. He knows how to spell, but he is just as cruel when it comes to putting down people he doesn’t like.
He went after Vijaya Gadde, who he said was Jack Dorsey’s “conscience keeper” and the person who made the decision to kick Trump off Twitter. Musk immediately responded to a tweet that called out Gadde by name for crying while talking to her staff about the takeover.
He said that Twitter made a mistake when it tried to stop false information about a news story about Hunter Biden, the son of US Vice President Joe Biden and that it shouldn’t have blocked the account and reach of a New York Post reporter. It was all Musk. Without remorse and knowing that trolls would treat the immigrant badly.
If almost everyone thought that Musk would fire Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, then shooting at Gadde was almost the same thing.n
Summary
Vijaya Gadde is a famous American attorney who formerly held the positions of Policy, Safety, Legal Lead Director, Chief Legal Officer, and General Counsel at Twitter. Gadde was born in India to a Telugu family and moved to the United States at the age of three.
Vijaya Gadde’s estimated net worth as of October 2022 is $36.4 million. Gadde made around $17 million in 2021 and roughly $7.3 million in 2020 as Twitter’s chief legal officer. Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022, she was terminated along with Twitter’s CEO and CFO.
Vijaya Gadde and Ramsey Homsany are happily married and are the proud parents of two children.
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