New York Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who previously became Twitter’s biggest individual shareholder, has decided not to involve in the social media company’s board.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the news on Sunday night.
“Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board,” Agrawal also tweet that “I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
A Twitter interviewer confirmed Musk decided not to connect with the Twitter board and referred to Agrawal’s declaration.
The development approach less than a week after the Tesla and SpaceX founder revealed that he had purchased a more than 9% stake in the company, and Twitter (TWTR) said in a regulatory filing that it planned to appoint Musk to its board for a term ending in 2024. Both Musk and Twitter’s leadership had expressed excitement about his addition to the board.
Musk tweeted Tuesday that he was “looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to twitter in coming months!” And Twitter founder Jack Dorsey mentioned that Musk and Agrawal would make “an incredible team.” Twitter’s stock surged after his initial purchase was disclosed.
As part of his accords to join the board, Musk had committed to not obtained more than 14.9% of the company’s shares during his term. Some corporate governance experts suggested that the movie could have been a way of restraining Musk’s influence on the company. Now, that limitation is no longer in place, leaving the door open for Musk to potentially take a more aggressive stance by buying up more of Twitter’s shares.
In his tweet Sunday night reporting Musk’s reversal, Agrawal told the company’s board had “believed that 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.”
The corporate board team also typically shares their suggestions for the company privately, which might have the meaning that Musk would have had to stop tweeting about his ideas on Twitter. The statement that Musk would no longer join the board came after he uploaded a posted series of tweets about the company over the weekend, including one in which he shared an idea about removing the “w” from “Twitter” — an apparent crude joke that since it has been deleted — and another in which he asked if Twitter is “dying” due to some of its most-followed accounts don’t often tweet.
“In our opinion, the Twitter Board and Musk could not come to an agreement around Musk’s communications with the public (various polls) over Twitter as he likely needed to take a more back seat/quiet stance as part of joining the Board,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an investor note Monday. He added that Musk’s relationship with Twitter may now become “a ‘Game of Thrones battle between Musk and Twitter with the high likelihood that Elon takes a more hostile stance towards Twitter and further builds his active stake in the company.”
It’s not entirely clear what converts Musk was — or perhaps still is — seeking for Twitter. In the last weeks, Musk suggested on Twitter that the platform doesn’t allow free enough speech, and told it should make its algorithm open source. He also polled his followers last week about whether they “want an edit button,” a longtime feature request, if an isolating one, from many Twitter users. (Twitter said last week it has been working on an edit feature for the past year.)
Musk has not tweeted about his decision. CNN Business has reached out to Tesla (TSLA) for comment.
