Elon Musk Joins Twitter Board after Becoming Biggest Shareholder
Elon Musk has been appointed to Twitter’s board of directors, the company announced Tuesday, a day after regulatory filings revealed the Tesla chief had become the social media platform’s biggest outside investor.
“Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board,” Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal said Tuesday in a tweet. “He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term.”
Musk’s term on the board will extend through 2024, according to a regulatory filing dated Monday. Musk, who’s amassed a 9.2 percent passive stake in Twitter, valued at $2.9 billion, is one of the platform’s most popular users. He has more than 80 million followers.
“Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months,” Musk tweeted Tuesday.
I’m excited to share that we’re appointing @elonmusk to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 5, 2022
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. The company does not typically respond to media requests after disbanding its public relations team in 2020.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This was a friendly move by the Twitter board to embrace Musk with open arms,” Dan Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, said Tuesday in comments emailed to The Post. “Now it’s time to get out the popcorn and watch the developments over the coming months.”
Ives said he expects Musk will drive “a host of strategic initiatives” at Twitter, and that his influence will be “embraced by investors.”
As recently as late March, Musk was publicly musing over the possibility of starting his own social media platform. But now it seems he is doubling down on the platform that has elevated his profile. Within hours of the announcement of his passive stake in Twitter, Musk was polling users about the possibility of adding an edit button, a longtime source of contention among the app’s users and leadership.
Last month, Musk polled Twitter on whether the app “rigorously adheres” to the principles of free speech, remarking that the poll’s consequences will be “important.”
I am inspired by curiosity.
That is what drives me.
So let us expand the scope & scale of consciousness so that we may aspire to understand the Universe.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2022
“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he tweeted. He then asked, “Is a new platform needed?”
Musk’s deployment of Twitter is wide-ranging, swinging freely from memes to business decisions to appeals to “expand the scope & scale of consciousness so that we may aspire to understand the Universe.” It’s landed him in trouble repeatedly, including for a 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have “Funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Later, Musk clarified that the tweet had been a joke.
