On Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal stated publicly that Musk remains the firm’s largest shareholder. Twitter’s management will stay receptive to his comments, despite his refusal to join the board of the microblogging platform.
Musk shared a number of suggestions throughout the weekend on how the social media giant and its products could be transformed. Some of his tweets were serious suggestions about subscribers paying for ‘Twitter Blue’ with dogecoin, about not letting corporations dictate policy via ads. He also made a coarse joke about dropping the ‘w’ from Twitter.
One of his tweets about turning Twitter’s San Francisco HQ into a homeless shelter caught the attention of his SpaceX rival and fellow billionaire, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. He suggested turning only a part of the office space into a homeless shelter, making it accessible for employees to volunteer if interested. He also shared a link to a blog post that said the same.
All through this, Musk did not reveal that he had turned down the board seat. That announcement came from the CEO of Twitter, where he had stated that this was for the best and that their goals and priorities remained unchanged.
What now?
According to a financial filing from Twitter, Musk would be limited to having no more than a 14.9% ownership in the company’s outstanding common shares. This is including through derivative securities, swaps, or hedging transactions, as long as he served on the board.
Now that Musk has refused his seat on the board, he could technically expand his 9% share beyond its current limit, for an even larger stake.
It is once again unclear as to what his plans are for the social media site. Musk is extremely influential, and his riches and unpredictability make him a potentially rewarding but also a potentially risky investor. With his wealth, he could even buy out Twitter Inc., if he wishes to.
