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Elon Musk refuses Twitter board seat
Elon Musk refused Twitter’s offer of a board seat. That leaves him free to buy a controlling stake in Twitter if he wants.
Elon Musk refuses to join the Twitter board. Does that mean he is about to buy a controlling vote?
Elon Musk backs away
The story about Elon Musk not taking the Twitter board seat first broke on The Daily Mail. Other conventional organs having the story include NPR, CNBC, France24, and AP. Alternative media organs having the story include Steve Crowder, BizPac Review, and The Verge.
Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Twitter, announced the breakdown of negotiations with Elon Musk on the platform:
Mr. Agrawal said Elon Musk was supposed to join the board effective last Saturday. But on Saturday morning, Elon said no. In reply Agrawal says:
I believe this is for the best.
And then he makes this provocative statement, that conveniently most embeds cut off from view:
There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged. The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and stay focused on the work and what we’re building.
Nor does Mr. Agrawal reveal the full terms of that offer. They offered him a seat, all right – only if he limited his stake in the company to 14.9 percent. News flash: one does not tell Elon Musk what to do. He was likely never going to take that board seat, not under those conditions.
What did Elon Musk want to do?
Elon Musk, all week long, tweeted several changes he wanted to make to Twitter. These included:
- Eliminating all advertising on the premium Twitter service, called Twitter Blue. Advertising now accounts for 90 percent of the firm’s revenues.
- Allowing users to edit their tweets after posting, and most interesting of all:
- Turning the Twitter headquarters building into a homeless shelter.
He also tweeted out a list of the ten most-followed Twitter accounts – and pointed out that those accounts tweet seldom or never.
Furthermore, he pointed out that half the accounts tweeting about COVID-19 turn out to be bots.
The leftiest of users feared that he would reinstate several accounts that Twitter has famously suspended. They include Donald J. Trump, James O’Keefe, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). One Twitter employee accused Elon Musk of “harmful behavior.”
Someone else doubled down on the cult of censorship now taking shape at Twitter.
The company stock fell eight percent in pre-market trading today.
What next?
What next? No one knows. If the market fell, the “smart money” must think Elon will dump his shares and take what profits he still has.
If they really think that, they just made something else easier for him to do: take over the company outright. With the shares now worth less than they were at Friday close, he could start a buying spree. And people who have read the terms of the board seat offer, know it.
Yet another apparent employee with a name saying very derogatory things about Elon Musk, fairly gasped in horror:
That could indeed happen. Again: stay tuned.
Video
About the image
“Elon Musk Taking Questions” by Steve Jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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[…] Twitter offered him a board seat, on condition that he not buy more than 14.9 percent of the company. He refused. […]
[…] Twitter offered him a board seat, on condition that he not buy more than 14.9 percent of the company. He refused. […]
[…] his acquisition of 9.2 percent of Twitter on April 4. Twitter’s board offered him a seat, but he refused. Then he announced plans for a hostile takeover. Twitter adopted a poison pill defense, and Elon […]
[…] This year he quietly bought shares of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), until he owned 9.2 percent of the company. Twitter management then offered him a board seat, on condition that he limit his stake to 14.9 percent. Last weekend, Musk refused the offer, and the seat. […]