Explained: Who is Vijaya Gadde, the Twitter employee under fire after Elon Musk’s takeover?

Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

Saagar Enjeti, the co-host of the Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar podcast, had tweeted a Politico article headlined, “Twitter’s top lawyer reassures staff, cries during meeting about Musk takeover”. After responding to Enjeti’s tweet, Musk posted a meme with a photograph of Gadde and the infamous podcaster, Joe Rogan, accusing Twitter of left-wing bias.

On his decision to acquire Twitter, Musk has repeatedly stated that he wants to ensure “absolute free speech” on the platform, asserting that this meant “effectively upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

pic.twitter.com/1CE7rjBrNH

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

Who is Vijaya Gadde?

Gadde, the head of Legal, Policy and Trust at Twitter, is responsible for leading a team of executives that preside over content moderation and the platform’s safety policy. Content moderation on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook has long been a contentious space. Tech experts fear that letting platforms decide what content is appropriate and what isn’t ascribes them too much power in the democratic world order.

Gadde has been described as a liberal-leaning executive, earning the ire of Republicans in the United States over some of her key policy decisions.

A Bloomberg report called her the “final word” on blocking tweets and accounts on the platform.

In her earlier statements, Gadde has also acknowledged the allegations of bias, such as the one made by Musk. “No matter what we do we’ve been accused of bias. Leaving content up, taking content down — that’s become pretty much background noise,” she was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

Though Gadde maintains a low profile outside of Twitter, she was brought into the limelight over significant decisions such as banning political ads on the platform prior to the 2020 US Presidential Elections, to avoid a repeat of the social media manipulation that the 2016 elections saw. She was also the driver behind suspending then US President

Donald Trump’s account and restricting far-right influence on Twitter during the violence that broke out at the Capitol.

“The account of @realDonaldTrump has been permanently suspended from Twitter due to the risk of further violence,” she tweeted on January 9, 2021.

Born in Hyderabad, Gadde moved along with her parents and grew up in Texas. She is a graduate of Cornell University and the New York University School of Law. Before joining Twitter in 2011, she was a Senior Director and Associate General Counsel, Corporate, at Juniper Networks. She is also on the boards of Guardant Health, a company dedicated to defeating cancer, Planet, a leader in the Earth observation industry, and Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organisation.

According to a Politico report, she was close to then-CEO Jack Dorsey, accompanying him to the Oval Office to meet Trump in 2019, and the Dalai Lama in India.

Vijaya Gadde and the New York Post controversy

Gadde was reportedly the driving factor behind restricting a NY Post “expose” on Hunter Biden, which used information available purportedly on Hunter’s laptop to claim that as the Vice-President Joe Biden had directed the country’s foreign policy in Ukraine to help his son’s position at an energy company.

The article had appeared on October 14, just shortly before the 2020 elections, and had also led to a nearly two-week suspension of the NY Post’s official Twitter handle.

Twitter had stated that the article violated its “Hacked Materials Policy” as the information provided in the article had been allegedly obtained through hacking, and revealed personal details of an individual. On October 31, Twitter reversed its policy, following what Gadde called critical and supportive feedback over their decision.

Dorsey had at the time acknowledged, “Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable.”

The Federal Election Commission in 2021 ruled that Twitter did not violate federal laws in restricting access to the NY Post story on Hunter while deliberating on a complaint filed by the Republican National Committee. The FEC found that the blocking of sharing of the article was “undertaken for commercial reasons and not for the purpose of influencing an election,” a statement read.

Musk, however, on Tuesday called out the decision as “inappropriate”.

Elon Musk’s tweet on Vijaya Gadde and the aftermath

Following Musk’s tweet targeting a decision made by Gadde, and a meme accusing her of left-wing bias, social media users were divided in their response.

While Gadde was faced with a barrage of trolls calling for her to be fired and directing abusive and racist comments at her, several users also stood up against Musk. Former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo tweeted, “You’re making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats.” He later added, “Bullying is not leadership.”

According to a Washington Post report, the deal signed by Musk with Twitter restricts him from “disparaging” the company or its representatives. However, the clause only applies to tweets or statements made about the deal itself, hence, his statements over Gadde would be outside of its purview.

Musk also responded to right-wing media personality Mike Cernovich’s tweet targeting another Twitter counsel, Jim Baker, for allegedly “facilitating fraud” saying, “Sounds pretty bad…”

Employees have already expressed apprehensions over Musk’s takeover, fearing massive changes in policies, several reports have said.

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