Elon Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, now joins its board

Over the past week, Elon Musk has been busy – whether it is posting polls on Twitter or buying a chunk of Twitter shares for a few Bs. Hours after he asked his 80 million followers whether they wanted the edit button to come to Twitter or not, it is revealed that Musk is set to join Twitter’s board of directors.

This comes barely a day after he acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter by buying 73,486,938 shares for nearly $3 billion. With the stake, he became the largest shareholder of Twitter, exceeding that of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The current development was announced by Parag Agarwal, Dorsey’s successor as CEO of Twitter, who tweeted that Musk would be joining the board of directors after several conversations between Musk and Twitter in recent weeks, which made it clear to the company that the Technoking of Tesla would bring “great value to its board.”

In a follow-up tweet, Agarwal wrote that Musk was both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service, which seems to be exactly what Twitter needs to emerge all the stronger in the long run.

The “intense critic” part sounds right, given that Musk has criticized some of Twitter’s policies in recent times. He even asked his followers in an online poll whether they believed that Twitter adhered to the principle of free speech, which “is essential to a functioning democracy.” The results speak for themselves – over 70% of them voted “No.”

Musk also said that he was giving “serious thought” to the creation of a new social media platform. Soon after he became Twitter’s largest shareholder, he posted another poll asking users whether they wanted an edit button to come to Twitter or not. An overwhelming majority voted “Yes.”

Coming back to Musk’s appointment to the board, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX replied that he was looking forward “to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!” We have to wait and see what kind of improvements Musk cooks up, and knowing him, it will probably be interesting ones.

Dorsey was not left out of the conversation either, tweeting that he was “really happy” that Musk was joining the board. “He cares deeply about our world and Twitter’s role in it. Parag and Elon both lead with their hearts, and they will be an incredible team,” he tweeted.

Musk will be a part of Twitter’s board until the company’s annual shareholder meeting in 2024. While he will be a part of the board, his stake cannot be larger than 14.9% at any given point in that time.