Tesla founder Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors after it emerged on Monday that he had acquired 9.2% of the messaging platform and vowed to make “significant improvements” in the coming months.
“I am excited to share that we will be appointing Elon Musk to our board,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a message posted on the social network.
Agrawal added that the company has been in talks with Musk in recent weeks and that he will bring “great value” to the company’s Board of Directors.
“He is both a passionate believer and an intense critic of service, which is exactly what we need on Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger for the long haul. Welcome Elon!”, Agrawal wrote in another message.
Musk himself responded to Agrawal with another tweet expressing his desire to begin work on the board “to make significant improvements to Twitter in the coming months,” though he offered no further details.
After learning of the businessman’s appointment, Twitter shares soared 7.3% in the electronic activities of the New York Stock Exchange prior to its opening.
According to a document sent to the stock market regulator, Musk will not be able to control more than 14.9% of the company at any time, either individually or as part of a group.
The announcement of the acquisition by Musk of 9.2% of the technology platform yesterday triggered the company’s values, which closed 27.12% above their previous close.
The billionaire, who currently owns almost 73.5 million shares of the messaging company, criticized the social network in several tweets at the end of March.
On March 25, he proposed a vote among his followers on whether Twitter adhered ” rigorously” to the principle of freedom of expression.
70.4% of the more than two million users who participated in the survey said no.
“The consequences of this survey will be important. Please vote carefully,” Musk wrote then before his participation in the social network was known.
A day earlier he had asked, also through the same network, whether the Twitter algorithm should be open, to which 82.7% of the survey participants answered yes.
Half an hour before the opening of the Wall Street Stock Exchange, the price of Twitter shares was 20% above its value at the close of Friday:
Musk has always been very active on Twitter, from where he has shared information about his companies and where he has been involved in several controversies, such as his support and rejection of the dogecoin cryptocurrency, which caused dizzying fluctuations.
In November 2021, the businessman polled Twitter users on whether or not he should sell 10% of his shares in Tesla.
“There’s been a lot of talks lately about unrealized gains being a way to avoid taxes, so I’m proposing to sell 10% of my Tesla shares. Do you support this?”, he then asked, to which 57% of more than 3.5 million participants said yes.
After the survey, Musk sold his shares, but numerous media pointed out that this sale was already scheduled by the billionaire, in order to face a significant tax payment.