Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal recently announced that the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk will not be joining the social platform’s board of directors. Previously, Agrawal had confirmed that Musk would be appointed to the board after he purchased 9.2% of the company’s shares. However, Musk has since then changed his plans.
Agarwal wrote:
We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the Board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance … Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.
Joining the board would have prevented Musk from owning more than 14.9% of the company. Musk’s current stakes in Twitter are worth $2.89 billion, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
Musk had been publicly tweeting about his plans for the company. He posted a poll asking users what they thought about an edit feature for their tweets, only a day before the long-awaited feature was rolled out.
The day Musk stated he would not join the board, he also tweeted multiple suggestions such as introducing verification checkmarks with the paid Twitter Blue service, among many others.
Agarwal further elaborated:
There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged. The decisions we make and how we execute are in our hands, no one else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and stay focused on the work and what we’re building.
Musk has yet to comment on his decision.
