Google once paid an employee $100 million to stop him from joining Twitter

The executive in question is Neal Mohan, who is now the CEO of YouTube. Back in 2011, Mohan was already an important figure at Google, playing a key role in advertising and the product strategy for YouTube.

MC Tech Desk

May 28, 2025 / 14:31 IST

Google

A little over a decade ago, Google made a huge offer to keep one of its top executives from leaving the company and joining Twitter, which is now known as X. The surprising story came out recently during a podcast hosted by Nikhil Kamath, the co-founder of Zerodha, when he talked about the fierce competition between tech giants to keep and attract talent.

The executive in question is Neal Mohan, who is now the CEO of YouTube. Back in 2011, Mohan was already an important figure at Google, playing a key role in advertising and the product strategy for YouTube. Kamath mentioned on the podcast, "I remember reading about Google offering you $100 million not to quit." Mohan didn’t deny this.

According to reports from that time, Google’s $100 million offer came as restricted stock units, basically, stock shares that would become fully his over several years. This was part of a serious effort by Google to stop Mohan from leaving, especially since Twitter was trying hard to bring him onboard as their Chief Product Officer. Twitter’s interest wasn’t surprising since Mohan’s former boss, David Rosenblatt, had joined Twitter’s board and wanted Mohan to join him.

Neal Mohan’s career path is quite impressive. He studied electrical engineering at Stanford, started at Andersen Consulting, then moved to a startup called NetGravity. When NetGravity was bought by DoubleClick, Mohan moved up the ranks. After Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2007, Mohan became a major leader within Google’s ad business.

Interestingly, Mohan wasn’t the only Google star that Twitter tried to recruit. Sundar Pichai, who was leading Chrome and Chrome OS at the time, also caught Twitter’s eye. Google reportedly responded by offering Pichai $50 million in stock to stay.