Elon Musk pulls out of joining Twitter's board of directors

AppleInsider

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has decided against joining Twitter's board of directors, and punctuated his departure by tweeting a facepalm emoji.

Credit: Twitter

After becoming Twitter's largest individual shareholder, Elon Musk was announced as joining the board of directors -- but has now changed his mind. His appointment was to become officially effective from April 9, 2022, but on that same morning, Musk told Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal he was withdrawing.

Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk

-- Parag Agrawal (@paraga)

April 11, 2022

Revealing the decision on April 11, Agrawal stressed that Musk remains the company's biggest shareholder, and that Twitter "will remain open to his input."

Musk has not formally commented on his reasons for backing down. However, according to The Guardian, he tweeted and then removed a facepalm emoji.

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darbus69

thank the heavens…

The_New_tonton

He realised the rest of the board wouldn’t allow him to be a dick and enable science deniers, liars and racists to post hate speech and misinformation without having their accounts banned.

oberpongo

Shouldn’t this news be on twitterinsider?

entropys

i still think Musk is a carpet bagger sucking in gullible investors and government officials (but I repeat myself) but I do confess to liking the cut of his jib.  

The best bit of this episode in the Life of Musk is the outraged hysteria it has caused in certain circles. Well deserved.  And well played good sir!

I look forward to Musk's next act. Even Musk sets aside time for a hobby.  

Cesar Battistini Maziero

Great, he will still have the influence without the hassle.

crowley

Probably for the best for everyone. 

Paul_B

Electric vehicles are the biggest scam.  Every new build home will be required by government to have a charging station - Even if you do not drive.  a Builder or Developer CANNOT sell a property without a furnace or hot water tank.  As for the batteries, where will they be stored?  A combustion engine uses the battery primarily to start the vehicle, once started you can take the battery out.  Think.

crowley

Paul_B said:

Electric vehicles are the biggest scam.  Every new build home will be required by government to have a charging station - Even if you do not drive.  a Builder or Developer CANNOT sell a property without a furnace or hot water tank.  As for the batteries, where will they be stored?  A combustion engine uses the battery primarily to start the vehicle, once started you can take the battery out.  Think.

You take the battery out of your car after you start it?

dominikhoffmann

That should drive the price of Twitter stock back down. This is good for Truth Social and Gettr.

JWSC

It was a hand over mouth emoji, not a face palm emoji.  This is the calm before the storm.

In Musk’s Twitter thread someone posted a video of Carl Icahn talking about how he fired 12 floors of people in a company that he became convinced did nothing and added no value to the company. Fascinating video by the way.  Musk‘s one word response in the tweet was “Exactly.”

hmlongco

entropys said:

i still think Musk is a carpet bagger sucking in gullible investors and government officials...  

We need more carpet baggers if they can create things like Tesla and SpaceX.

Those two things have earned him a lot of goodwill in my book, and because of that I can forgive his occasional, boring lapse.... [sic]

Kuyangkoh

crowley said:

Paul_B said:

Electric vehicles are the biggest scam.  Every new build home will be required by government to have a charging station - Even if you do not drive.  a Builder or Developer CANNOT sell a property without a furnace or hot water tank.  As for the batteries, where will they be stored?  A combustion engine uses the battery primarily to start the vehicle, once started you can take the battery out.  Think.

You take the battery out of your car after you start it?

Now….that’s a scam

Kuyangkoh

hmlongco said:

entropys said:

i still think Musk is a carpet bagger sucking in gullible investors and government officials...  

We need more carpet baggers if they can create things like Tesla and SpaceX.

Those two things have earned him a lot of goodwill in my book, and because of that I can forgive his occasional, boring lapse.... [sic]

Richest man…..i will give a huge palm for that, like him or not

sevenfeet

I think Elon Musk realized that being a board officer would put him under even more constraints on the use of Twitter than he currently has. Musk's problems right now come from the fact that he can't say anything he wants about a public company about Tesla without running afoul of SEC rules. Joining Twitter's board wouldn't change that....in fact, he'd be under even more communication constraints since he'd be a fiduciary officer who is supposed to be looking out for the company's best interests. It's not that he cannot publicly disagree with the rest of the board, but there would be limits as an officer as to when and how that is done. It's better for him to remain on the outside.

JWSC

sevenfeet said:

I think Elon Musk realized that being a board officer would put him under even more constraints on the use of Twitter than he currently has. Musk's problems right now come from the fact that he can't say anything he wants about a public company about Tesla without running afoul of SEC rules. Joining Twitter's board wouldn't change that....in fact, he'd be under even more communication constraints since he'd be a fiduciary officer who is supposed to be looking out for the company's best interests. It's not that he cannot publicly disagree with the rest of the board, but there would be limits as an officer as to when and how that is done. It's better for him to remain on the outside.

Yea, I think a lot of people are misreading what's happening.  Musk is not backing off in any way.  As you state, joining the board would constrain him in ways that he has determined would be unhelpful to his ambitions for Twitter.  Get your popcorn out people.  This is going to be fun to watch.

foregoneconclusion

JWSC said:

sevenfeet said:

I think Elon Musk realized that being a board officer would put him under even more constraints on the use of Twitter than he currently has. Musk's problems right now come from the fact that he can't say anything he wants about a public company about Tesla without running afoul of SEC rules. Joining Twitter's board wouldn't change that....in fact, he'd be under even more communication constraints since he'd be a fiduciary officer who is supposed to be looking out for the company's best interests. It's not that he cannot publicly disagree with the rest of the board, but there would be limits as an officer as to when and how that is done. It's better for him to remain on the outside.

Yea, I think a lot of people are misreading what's happening.  Musk is not backing off in any way.  As you state, joining the board would constrain him in ways that he has determined would be unhelpful to his ambitions for Twitter.  Get your popcorn out people.  This is going to be fun to watch.

LOL...Musk and his brother are both being investigated for insider trading by the SEC. That's happening AFTER Musk already had to settle a securities fraud charge with the SEC several years ago and is now attempting to back out of the settlement. How is he qualified to sit on Twitter's board and provide "advice"? 

JWSC

foregoneconclusion said:

JWSC said:

sevenfeet said:

I think Elon Musk realized that being a board officer would put him under even more constraints on the use of Twitter than he currently has. Musk's problems right now come from the fact that he can't say anything he wants about a public company about Tesla without running afoul of SEC rules. Joining Twitter's board wouldn't change that....in fact, he'd be under even more communication constraints since he'd be a fiduciary officer who is supposed to be looking out for the company's best interests. It's not that he cannot publicly disagree with the rest of the board, but there would be limits as an officer as to when and how that is done. It's better for him to remain on the outside.

Yea, I think a lot of people are misreading what's happening.  Musk is not backing off in any way.  As you state, joining the board would constrain him in ways that he has determined would be unhelpful to his ambitions for Twitter.  Get your popcorn out people.  This is going to be fun to watch.

LOL...Musk and his brother are both being investigated for insider trading by the SEC. That's happening AFTER Musk already had to settle a securities fraud charge with the SEC several years ago and is now attempting to back out of the settlement. How is he qualified to sit on Twitter's board and provide "advice"? 

The SEC may or may not be investigating Musk.  I have no knowledge of that one way or the other. 

From what I have gathered Parag Agrawal and the board offered Musk a seat.  He initially accepted but then after a few days reversed himself and declined.

As far as Musk offering ’advice’ I would say that ship has sailed.  I think he is genuinely interested in improving Twitter‘s business model and revenue stream.  But we know from insider talk that many Twitter employees are less than enthused.

This has a high potential of escalating into a confrontation.  My guess is that Musk is doing what he can to acquire more shares legally.  If I had a large cash pile sitting around I would be buying Twitter shares right now.

bvgk

The_New_tonton said:

He realised the rest of the board wouldn’t allow him to be a dick and enable science deniers, liars and racists to post hate speech and misinformation without having their accounts banned.

all Twitter has to do is ... not take sides .... and follow local laws ( more so, when in doubt )

waveparticle

He has gold finger?

JWSC

foregoneconclusion said:

JWSC said:

sevenfeet said:

I think Elon Musk realized that being a board officer would put him under even more constraints on the use of Twitter than he currently has. Musk's problems right now come from the fact that he can't say anything he wants about a public company about Tesla without running afoul of SEC rules. Joining Twitter's board wouldn't change that....in fact, he'd be under even more communication constraints since he'd be a fiduciary officer who is supposed to be looking out for the company's best interests. It's not that he cannot publicly disagree with the rest of the board, but there would be limits as an officer as to when and how that is done. It's better for him to remain on the outside.

Yea, I think a lot of people are misreading what's happening.  Musk is not backing off in any way.  As you state, joining the board would constrain him in ways that he has determined would be unhelpful to his ambitions for Twitter.  Get your popcorn out people.  This is going to be fun to watch.

LOL...Musk and his brother are both being investigated for insider trading by the SEC. That's happening AFTER Musk already had to settle a securities fraud charge with the SEC several years ago and is now attempting to back out of the settlement. How is he qualified to sit on Twitter's board and provide "advice"? 

So I did a little on-line research into the SEC investigation.  They're probing him about the sales of Tesla shares after he asked Twitter users via a poll if he should sell his shares in order to pay taxes.  This was done after much criticism was leveled at Musk for paying so little in taxes.  One only pays taxes on capital gains and not stock prices rises, which didn't seem to matter to his detractors.  So Musk asked and the people answered - sell shares and pay taxes, which he did.  This was all done publicly.  Accusations of insider trading are spurious in this case.  It appears that the SEC is going after him for not having his public Tweets be vetted by the SEC in advance, which was included in the terms of settlement in an earlier dust up with the SEC.

As far as I can tell, the SEC is not currently investigating Musk for his trading of Twitter stock - at least not publicly.  Musk has been open about his contempt for the SEC as an organization, stating that it is under the purview of vested interests that are not aligned with the good of the general public and the markets.  He has stated that he is prepared to expose them.  I guess you could call it a sort of threat to the SEC apparatchiks.  No love lost there.