Elon Musk has reversed his plan to join Twitter‘s board of directors, less than a week after he announced his investment in the social media giant.
On Sunday night, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal disclosed in a message to company staffers that Musk has decided not to join the board.
Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter/lfrXACavvk
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022
Last week it was disclosed that Musk has become Twitter’s single-largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake he had quietly gathered. The agreement unveiled last week curbed Musk’s ability to amass more than a 14.9% interest in the company as long as he remains a director on the board. Twitter shares closed Friday at $46.23, down 3.8% for the day.
“We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks,” Agrawal wrote in his message. He asserted that the Twitter board had numerous discussions with Musk about coming on to the board and he was ultimately offered a seat.
“We have and always will value input from our shareholders, whether they are on our board or not,” wrote Agrawal, the former chief technology officer who took over as CEO from Jack Dorsey last November.
Musk, who has some 81.3 million Twitter followers, has not referenced his about-face on his own well-trafficked Twitter account.
Musk’s reputation as a mercurial entrepreneur and investor had tech industry observers predicting that some kind of sparks would fly as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX barrelled his way into Twitter.
“Now it’s time to get out the popcorn and watch the developments over the coming months with Musk on the board,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients last week. Ives also predicted that Wall Street would embrace Musk’s involvement with the embattled social platform.
