Elon Musk no longer joining Twitter’s board of directors, still has 9% stake in company

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the information, which adopted a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting doable modifications to Twitter, together with making the location ad-free. Almost 90% of Twitter’s 2021 income got here from advertisements.

“Elon’s appointment to the board was to develop into formally efficient on 4/9, however Elon shared that very same morning that he wouldn’t be becoming a member of the board,” Agrawal wrote in a reposted be aware initially despatched to Tesla workers. “I imagine that is for the most effective.”

Agrawal did not supply a proof for Musk’s obvious resolution, though he dropped one main trace. The Twitter board “believed having Elon as a fiduciary of the corporate, the place he, like all board members, has to behave in the most effective pursuits of the corporate and all our shareholders, was the most effective path ahead,” he wrote.

Musk posted just a few cryptic tweets late Sunday, together with one exhibiting a meme saying, “In all equity, your honor, my shopper was in goblin mode,” adopted by one saying “Explains every part.” One other, later tweet was of an emoji with a hand over its mouth.

He now has a 9% stake in Twitter, elevating questions on how he may attempt to reshape the social media platform as Twitter’s largest shareholder.

Musk’s 80.5 million Twitter followers make him probably the most widespread figures on the platform, rivaling pop stars like Ariana Grande and Girl Gaga. However his prolific tweeting has typically gotten him into bother, corresponding to when he has used it to advertise his enterprise ventures, rally Tesla loyalists, query pandemic measures and decide fights.

In a single well-known instance, Musk apologized to a British cave explorer who alleged the Tesla CEO had branded him a pedophile by referring to him as “pedo man” in an offended – and subsequently deleted – tweet. The explorer filed a defamation swimsuit, though a Los Angeles jury later cleared Musk.

He is additionally been locked in a long-running dispute with the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee over his Twitter exercise. Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Musk to have his tweets accepted by a company lawyer after he tweeted about having the cash to take Tesla personal at $420 per share. That did not occur however the tweet triggered Tesla’s inventory value to leap. His lawyer has contended that the SEC is infringing on Musk’s free speech rights.

Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has stated he does not suppose Twitter resides as much as free speech rules – an opinion shared by followers of Donald Trump and several other right-wing political figures who’ve had their accounts suspended for violating Twitter content material guidelines.

However what’s actually has been driving Musk’s Twitter involvement is not clear. Different preoccupations with the service embody arguing to make Twitter’s algorithm viewable by the general public, widening the provision of “verified” Twitter accounts, and blasting a profile picture initiative involving non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

Musk has additionally known as “crypto spam bots,” which search tweets for cryptocurrency associated key phrases then pose as buyer assist to empty person crypto wallets, the “most annoying drawback on Twitter.”

Twitter’s CEO and different board members have praised Musk, suggesting they could take his concepts severely.

Agrawal’s preliminary actions since taking on from co-founder Jack Dorsey in November have concerned reorganizing divisions with out making main modifications. The corporate has lengthy lagged behind its social media rivals and boasts far fewer customers.