Tech
Elon Musk
Elon Musk has decided he will not be joining Twitter's board. The announcement was made by Twitter's chief executive Parag Agrawal.
Last week it was revealed that Musk had acquired a 9.2 per cent stake in the company. After this, Twitter offered him a seat at the Board, which Musk accepted.
However Twitter's CEO has now tweeted that "he (Elon) shared that he will no longer be joining the board".
Agrawal added that Musk remains Twitter's largest shareholder and that the firm remains open to his input.
Offering Musk a board seat made sense for Twitter. Accepting a seat at the board would mean Musk accepting that he will not buy more than 14.9 per cent stake.
He can, in theory, now acquire a greater stake, although it is unclear if he will.
Over the week Musk had many ideas about what changes need to occur at Twitter. A substantive one was a question. He pointed out that most twitter users with the highest followers are rather inactive on the platform. He asked if Twitter was dying?
Other lighthearted suggestions included turning Twitter's headquarters into a shelter for homeless people. Anyone who knows about California knows how horrid the situation is. Skid row is a good location for the next slum dog millionaire.
Jeff Bezos, replied to this tweet, suggesting that a portion of the headquarters can be turned into a homeless shelter instead. Musk has now deleted his own tweet.
Twitter drama aside, what are Musk's plans for Twitter now after deciding that he won't be joining the board?
That is anyone's guess. Although why did Musk decide against joining the board? Well, Musk isn't that secretive about that. All you need to do is go to his Twitter profile and see the last tweet he liked. It's this one -
Either way, Musk has made money by merely acquiring the stocks and disclosing them later than he was supposed to. Value of the share is now higher than it was when he acquired them.
So irrespective of his influence on Twitter and whether the issue of arbitrary censorship will be solved, Musk in no way has lost anything by buying the 9.2 per cent stake.
According to The Journal, Musk's decision, after spending much of the weekend tweeting criticisms, suggestions and jokes about Twitter, casts new uncertainty over the relationship between the social-media platform and its largest shareholder.
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