Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and the world’s wealthiest man, has decided not to join the board of Twitter, announced Parag Agrawal, CEO of the social media company.
Last week, Musk became the biggest shareholder of Twitter after obtaining a 9.2% stake in the company, by purchasing approximately 73.5 million shares. Following the disclosure of this, the share price of Twitter saw a rise of as much as 27% and Agarwal had announced that the billionaire was being appointed to the board of the company.
However, with his appointment set to become official on Saturday, Musk had shared the same morning that he would not be joining the board, Agrawal revealed.
Explaining the decision to appoint Musk, the Twitter CEO wrote, “The board and I had many discussions about Elon joining the board, and with Elon directly. We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks. We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward.”
Announcing Musk’s decision not to join the board, he added, “I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on the board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
Musk currently stands as the largest shareholder of Twitter, with more than four times the share of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Hours after the news broke that Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, he ran a poll on the platform, asking “Do you want an edit button?” Agrawal retweeted this, saying the consequences of the poll would be important and asking users to “vote carefully.”
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Twitter had earlier said that an edit button was in the works. And while there were speculations that it might be an April Fools Day prank, the company’s communications team later clarified that it was not a joke and said they had been working on the feature since last year. They further added that they did not get the idea from a poll.
According to BBC, over the weekend, Musk also suggested changes to the Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising, and giving users the option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
The Tesla founder further pointed out in a recent tweet that many of the most-followed accounts on the platform do not post anything and questioned if Twitter was dying.