Elon Musk is leaving the Twitter board: Elon Musk has backed out of plans to join the Twitter board over the weekend.
Twitter Inc. employees took Monday off, the company’s monthly “rest day.” But Elon Musk made it hard not to think about work.
Musk, the billionaire who announced this month that he had become Twitter’s largest single shareholder, backed down from a plan to join the company’s board of directors over the weekend. Days earlier, Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal had laid the groundwork for a friendly relationship by inviting Musk to join the board. The company was so confident that it would accept Musk’s listing as a board member on its investor relations website. Mr. Agrawal also organized a question-and-answer session with Musk and associates this week.
For some employees, the reversal spelled chaos: Musk would continue to tweet his Twitter criticism to more than 80 million followers on the site with no obligation to act in the company’s best interests. The Q&A has been cancelled.
In his announcement late Sunday, Mr Agrawal called Musk’s surprise decision good for Twitter but warned of “distractions ahead”.
The whiplash is overwhelming, staff said. The mood among workers at Twitter is “super stressed” with employees “working together to help each other get through the week,” some said, asking not to be identified when discussing internal company details.
In recent days, Musk has been tweeting product ideas from removing advertising for members of Twitter’s subscription service to converting part of his San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter. Without a seat on the board, there are no more restrictions on how many shares he can buy, or his tweeting; One staffer expressed concern that Musk was “just getting started, which is unfortunate.” Several workers described the situation as a “sh-t show”.
Some Twitter employees already had mixed feelings about participating in the ask-me-anything session with Musk. It might have clarified whether Musk intended his effort to be friendly or hostile, but it could also have raised more questions about how to respond to his whims.
“I was really bothered by the immediate cooling effect of musk,” Rumman Chowdhury, a director of Twitter’s AI research team, posted on the social media site.
Meanwhile, Musk’s fans have chimed in on Twitter to scrutinize the product and have followed suit. “Twitter has a wonderful culture of hilarious constructive criticism, and I’ve watched it die down as its minions attacked employees,” Rumman Chowdhury said.
Musk’s sudden change of heart about the board seat also sparked speculation about his endgame. By not joining the board, Musk, who owns just over 9% of the company, is no longer subject to a standstill agreement that would have capped his stake at 14.9%.
“This decision by Elon doesn’t bode well for Twitter” because it could increase its stake while posting increasingly antagonistic things about the platform, said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant. “Twitter found it difficult to have Trump on the platform. Elon Musk is going to be a corporate nightmare.”