Elon Musk remains Twitter’s largest stakeholder after his purchase of 9.2% of the social media company, but he won’t be joining Twitter’s board after all. Musk was set to officially take a seat on Twitter’s board on Saturday, but CEO Parag Agrawal announced in a tweet Sunday that said Musk was offered a seat but decided not to join the board.
One of the conditions of being a member of Twitter’s board would be that Musk would have to act as a fiduciary, taking Twitter’s financial interests into account when making business decisions or public statements. Musk sent several tweets over the weekend about Twitter’s future, including one suggesting the possibility that the site, which gets over 90% of its revenue from advertising, go ad-free.
Twitter “believed 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,” Agrawal wrote, but that Musk’s decision not to join Twitter’s board is “for the best.”
Another condition of accepting the board seat was that Musk could not own more than 14.9% of Twitter’s stock. Even without a seat on Twitter’s board, the world’s richest person can still exercise great influence over decisions Twitter makes going forward.
“At some point he could throw the directors out, he could replace the board,” Chester Spatt, former chief economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told The Associated Press. “He could probably launch that with his current 9% stake and potentially be very successful.”
Musk deleted many of the tweets he sent over the weekend and posted one joking, “In all fairness, your honor, my client was in goblin mode.”
Musk’s lack of restraint in public forums has affected his businesses before, such as the time Tesla stock went down 6% after he smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
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