Late Sunday’s announcement limited a tornado week. Mr Musk’s 9.2% stake in Twitter was made public last Monday, plans to join his board were announced on Tuesday, and he spent much of the weekend tweeting criticisms, suggestions and outright jokes about the company. time spent.
Mr Aggarwal said in a message posted on Twitter that he and the board were excited to collaborate with Mr Musk, and believed he was best placed as a subsidiary of the company, where he would ” Acting in the best interest of the company and all our shareholders, was the best way forward.” Mr Musk’s appointment was to take effect Saturday, Twitter’s CEO wrote, “but Elon shared the same morning that he would no longer be joining the board.”
Mr. Agarwal did not give a reason for Mr. Musk’s decision. He said, “I believe it is for the best. We have and always will have input from our shareholders whether they are on our board or not. Elon is our largest shareholder and we are open to their inputs.” Will stay.”
The Tesla Inc CEO did not respond to a request for comment late Sunday. He tweeted a “face with hand over mouth” emoji after Mr Agarwal’s tweet.
Shares of Twitter were down 0.5% in recent premarket trading after the announcement, before plunging nearly 8%, and pointing to the stock’s potential losses when markets open Monday in New York. This could undo some of the gains the company made last week following news of Mr Musk’s stake. Last week, Twitter climbed 18%, its best weekly performance since February 2021 and one of its best weeks on record.
In recent premarket trading Monday, Tesla shares pulled back 3.5%.
Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world, is known for his unpredictable demeanor as well as his business acumen. His involvement in Twitter had already presented an unusual challenge as well as a potential opportunity for Mr. Agarwal, just months into his tenure as CEO, and the company said it had invited him to join its board. said. Now, with Mr. Musk exercising his influence from outside, the dynamics could get even more complicated.
Mr. Agarwal wrote, “There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities will remain unchanged. The decisions we make and the way we execute are in our hands, not anyone else’s. Let’s clear up the noise, And stay focused on the work and what we’re building.”
Several Twitter employees posted their reactions to Mr Agarwal’s announcement on Sunday, with some expressing exhaustion about the roller-coaster situation as Mr Musk disclosed his stake in the company.
“The drama that keeps on giving,” tweeted a Twitter employee on Sunday evening. Another tweeted a picture of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants lying flat on the floor.
Mr Musk had tweeted about Twitter throughout the weekend. He asked his 81 million followers if they think Twitter is dying and pointed out that many top Twitter accounts, including artists Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, rarely tweet.
Other tweets seemed less serious.
“Delete W in Twitter?” Mr Musk asked his Twitter followers in a poll.
Most of the provocative tweets came after Mr Musk decided not to join the board. His weekend tweets about Twitter began around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.
In tweets over the weekend, Mr Musk said Twitter Blue should ban ads, lower its $2.99-a-month price, and consider accepting the Dogecoin cryptocurrency as a payment for subscription service. He also said that the subscribers should get the authentication check mark.
It was not clear how serious Mr Musk was about his suggestions. Although Mr Musk has been known to cause controversy on Twitter, it is not common for major shareholders, who have been invited to publicly call out the company on the company’s board.
A self-described “free speech absolutist,” Mr Musk has often encouraged the platform to voice a variety of opinions.
Mr Musk has since deleted several tweets posted over the weekend.
Mr Musk’s tweets have gotten the billionaire into legal troubles in the past. In September 2018, Mr. Musk and Tesla reached a settlement settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission following a security-fraud charge brought against them by the SEC.
Since last year, Twitter has been working toward reaching its publicly announced goals of 315 million daily users and $7.5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2023. The company reported revenue of $5.08 billion at the end of last year, up 37% over the prior year. year, while its user base grew 13% to nearly 217 million daily users. If Twitter can maintain that momentum through the end of 2023, it will exceed its revenue target, but will miss the mark in growing its user base.
Shares of Twitter have fallen more than 25% over the past six months, while the NYSE composite index has gained more than 1% over the same period.
Mr. Agarwal took over as chief executive of Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey in November. Mr. Agarwal has been with the company for over a decade, starting as a software engineer and serving as the company’s chief technology officer from 2017 until his promotion to the top role.
Soon after taking over as CEO, Mr. Agarwal reshuffled the company’s leadership and embraced a culture of moving quickly and decisively. Since their arrival, the company has gone further in supporting Blockchain and NFT technologies.
Twitter said on Wednesday that it is developing a feature that will allow users to edit tweets after they have been posted. The announcement was made by Mr Musk after his followers asked if they wanted the editing feature.
—Caitlin McCabe contributed to this article.
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