Vijaya Gadde Age, Husband, Family, Biography

Bio/Wiki
Profession	Corporate Attorney
Famous For	Being the former general counsel and the head of legal, public policy, and trust & safety lead at Twitter
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)	in centimeters- 165 cm in meters- 1.65 m in feet & inches- 5’ 5”
Eye Colour	Dark Brown
Hair Colour	Dark Brown
Career
Awards, Honours, Achievements	• Described by Fortune as the most powerful woman on Twitter’s executive team in 2014 (Later, she was joined by Chief Marketing Officer of Twitter Leslie Berland) • Described by Politico as ‘the most powerful social media executive you’ve never heard of’ in 2020 • Listed in the Badass 50 ‘2020: Meet the women who are changing the world’ by Instyle magazine
Personal Life
Date of Birth	Year, 1974
Age (as of 2024)	50 Years
Birthplace	Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Nationality	American
Hometown	San Francisco, California
School	She attended a school in New Jersey
College/University	• Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (1993-1997) • New York University School of Law, New York (1997-2000)
Educational Qualification(s)	• Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York • Doctor of Jurisprudence from New York University School of Law, New York [1]NYU Law [2]Vijaya Gadde- LinkedIn
Ethnicity	Telugu
Caste	Arora (Gulati)
Controversies	• In 2018, Vijaya Gadde joined the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to his visit to India to have a meeting with Dalit activists to discuss their experiences on Twitter. During their meeting, Jack Dorsey was handed over the placard stating 'Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy' with which Jack and Vijaya were photographed. Soon after the photograph was posted on social media, people began criticising Dorsey and Gadde for discriminating against Brahmins and supporting caste and gender-based oppression in India. However, later, Gadde took to Twitter to apologise for the act and stated that they were handed over the placard by the Dalit activists. Stating that they should have been more careful about it, Vijaya said, "I’m very sorry for this. It’s not reflective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us – we should have been more thoughtful. Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India.” • On 27 October 2022, Elon Musk fired Twitter's Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Legal Affairs and Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde after Musk officially became the owner of Twitter. On 1 November 2024, a California district court judge allowed the terminated employees to sue Elon Musk for cheating them of their severance by not allowing them to resign. Thereafter, a formal lawsuit was filed by Parag, Ned, Vijaya, and Sean Edgett.
Relationships & More
Marital Status	Married
Family
Husband/Spouse	Ramsey Homsany (lawyer and tech executive)
Children	Daughter- Rumi Note: She also has a son, whose name is not known.
Parents	Father- Name Not Known (chemical engineer, who used to work in oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico) Mother- Ramani Gadde
Siblings	Sister- Kavitha Gadde (younger; head of Strategic Publisher Partnerships in America)
Money Factor
Salary/Income (approx.)	$17 million (as of 2021) Note: In the year 2020, she earned around $7.3 million. [3]The Indian Express

Some Lesser Known Facts About Vijaya Gadde

• Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney of Indian origin who worked at Twitter as the general counsel and the head of legal, public policy, and trust & safety lead from August 2013 to October 2022. On 27 October 2022, Elon Musk (soon after Musk took over the ownership of Twitter) fired her from her position at Twitter for misleading Musk and other investors about real figures on bots and fake accounts on Twitter.

• Vijaya was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, and when she was three years old, her family shifted to Beaumont, Texas, where her father had earlier moved to pursue his graduation.
  

  Vijaya Gadde’s childhood picture

• After a few months, her family moved to the east coast and got settled in New Jersey, where Vijaya received her school education.

• Gadde began her career as an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, an American law firm headquartered in Palo Alto, California, in October 2000. As a part of WSGR, Vijaya Gadde worked on the 2006 acquisition of McClatchy Co.-Knight Ridder Inc., which was worth $4.1 billion. Gadde also served as the attorney to the New York Stock Exchange’s Proxy Working Group and Committee on Corporate Governance. She resigned from her position at the firm after working there for almost a decade.

• She has also briefly worked at Juniper Networks, a network hardware company in California, as a senior director and associate general counsel (corporate).

• She joined Twitter in San Francisco, California, in July 2011 as director and legal head. At Twitter, she initially worked on matters including general corporate, securities, M&A, and international.

• Two years later, she was promoted to the position of general counsel and the head of legal, public policy, and trust & safety lead in the company.
  

  Vijaya Gadde discussing Twitter’s moderation policies at the Joe Rogan Experience

• As the legal and policy head, Vijaya dealt with tweets involving harassment, harmful speech, and fake news. She played a crucial role in blocking false propaganda and the accounts of people involved in such matters. Vijaya also took several high-profile decisions on Twitter.

• Although she operated in the background, mounding policies, her influence helped shape Twitter a lot during her tenure as the legal and policy head.
  

  Vijaya Gadde explaining the policies of Twitter at an event

• In 2021, Gadde was instrumental in permanently putting a ban on the Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump.

• Vijaya Gadde is the co-founder of an investment collective named Angels based in San Francisco. The company’s motive is to provide support to start-ups. It also helps ensure that equal remuneration is provided to women employees at successful companies in America.

• Vijaya Gadde is spotted consuming alcohol on various occasions.
  

  Vijaya Gadde during a party

• As the legal and policy head at Twitter, Vijaya was often called the ‘censor chief‘ of Twitter.

• During an interview, Vijaya Gadde revealed that her initial years in the US were very much affected by the Ku Klux Klan. Adding that when her family was residing in Beaumont, her father’s boss ordered him to seek permission from a local Ku Klux Klan leader to collect insurance premiums door to door (as her father was an Indian). She further said that she took the incident to her heart and decided that she would become a lawyer one day to fight racism.

• In April 2022, after making a winning bid for the social media platform Twitter, Musk attacked Vijaya Gadde for her “left-wing bias” and criticised her for blocking several renowned people on the platform. Calling himself a free speech absolutist during the acquisition, Musk condemned Twitter’s ban on Donald Trump. Reportedly, it was Gadde who spearheaded the decision to permanently put a ban on Trump’s account on the platform after the Capitol Hill riots in 2021. In one of his tweets, Musk even shared a meme about Twitter’s “left-wing bias” featuring Vijaya Gadde and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey during a discussion on a podcast show The Joe Rogan Experience with American YouTuber Tim Pool.
  

  Elon Musk’s tweet mocking Vijaya Gadde

  Musk even criticised Gadde for suspending the account of the New York Post for covering an exclusive story on Hunter Biden’s (son of the US President, Joe Biden) laptop.

• On 27 October 2022, soon after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk announced the termination of top executives of Twitter including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and policy head Vijaya Gadde. ^[4]The Indian Express

• According to the severance policy, after her involuntary termination during the applicable COC (Twitter’s Change of Control period), Gadde was reportedly eligible for Golden Parachute Compensation worth $54.7 million (roughly Rs 450 crore). ^[5]India Today

• Apparently, Vijaya held 623,156 direct stocks on Twitter worth $33,775,055 at the time of her dismissal from Twitter.

• In one of her tweets, Gadde shared that her fondest childhood memory was visiting India during the summer vacations and complaining about the limited number of books that she was allowed to carry with her from the library.

• While Gadde was serving as the legal and policy head at Twitter, the platform failed to remove child pornography content despite repeated requests from the victim and his family. After several requests to remove the content, Twitter responded to the victim that such videos were not in violation of the company’s policies and could not be removed. Twitter took action against the user who posted the content only after the victim registered a formal complaint at the Department of Homeland Security. By the time Twitter took any action, the videos were watched over by lakh users and were retweeted several times. Apparently, the victim also had to suffer bullying and harassment by his classmates due to the videos.

• As one of the top executives of Twitter, Gadde has joined Jack Dorsey in many crucial visits. In 2018, Vijaya was a part of Dorsey’s meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She also accompanied Dorsey on his meetings with Donald Trump and Dalai Lama.
  

  Vijaya Gadde during a meeting with Dalai Lama

• As the legal and policy head of Twitter, Gadde joined Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, on several important meetings. In 2018, Gadde accompanied Dorsey on his visit to India to meet the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She also joined Dorsey in his meeting with Dalai Lama. Vijaya coexisted in Jack Dorsey’s meeting with US President Donald Trump.