Elon Musk To Join Twitter’s Board

Elon Musk is set to join Twitter’s board of directors, a move that potentially boosts his influence over the social media platform and which comes one day after it was disclosed that he had become the company’s largest individual shareholder.

Twitter said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it plans to appoint the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to its board for a term that ends in 2024. As part of the deal, Musk has agreed not to acquire more than 14.9% of the company’s shares while he remains on the board.

On Monday, Twitter said in a filing that Musk had bought 9.2% of its shares. The news came as somewhat of a surprise, after Musk had tweeted multiple times in recent weeks criticising the company’s policies and mulling whether a new social media platform was needed.

“I’m excited to share that we’re appointing @elonmusk to our board!” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet Tuesday. “Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.”

Agrawal went on to note that Musk is both a “passionate believer” and an “intense critic” of the company, and that he believed Musk’s presence in the boardroom would add long-term value.

In response, Musk tweeted he is “looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!

It’s not entirely clear what improvements Musk has in mind. In recent weeks, Musk has suggested on Twitter that the platform does not allow free enough speech, and said it should make its algorithm open source. On Monday night, he also polled his followers about whether they “want an edit button,” a longtime feature request, if a divisive one, from many Twitter users.

After climbing more than 27% Monday on the news of Musk’s stock purchase, Twitter shares gained another 6% in pre-market trading Tuesday morning.

Source: CNN