elon musk
Bulletins

Elon Musk isn't joining Twitter's board after all

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced Sunday that the Tesla CEO and newfound major shareholder had decided not to become a director.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk won't be subject to Twitter's rules for board members now.

Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Elon Musk will not join Twitter's board of directors, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said Sunday.

Agrawal announced in a tweet (of course) that the Tesla CEO's appointment was subject to a "background check and formal acceptance." Musk's appointment was set to become effective Saturday, but he told the company he would not be joining the board that morning, Agrawal wrote. The proposal to name Musk to Twitter's board emerged as he and Twitter discussed his recent accumulation of shares in the company, amounting to a 9.1% stake he belatedly revealed on Monday.



The appointment of a director who had broken securities laws, allowed racism to run rampant at his manufacturing plants, and proposed changes to Twitter that would undermine its progress on moderating hate speech had generated considerable concern among Twitter employees. Management planned to hold a town hall with him to address those concerns. It's not clear if that meeting will still happen.

As a condition of joining the board, Musk agreed to limit his stake to 14.9%. As a board member, he also would have been bound by Twitter's code of conduct. Musk, whose past behavior suggests a studied lack of respect for rules, will not have to abide by those ones.

Musk's recent tweets don't seem to address his decision not to join the board. He continued to suggest Twitter product changes and proposed that Twitter's San Francisco headquarters be turned into a homeless shelter.

Musk also found time to violate a nondisparagement agreement he made in the settlement of a lawsuit with Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, whom he called "pure poison." (It's not the first time he breached that agreement.)

In an apparently unrelated development, Musk may no longer be Twitter's largest shareholder. Mutual fund group Vanguard reported a 10.3% stake in the company as of Friday in a new filing.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas is a senior editor at Protocol overseeing venture capital and financial technology coverage. He was previously business editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and before that editor-in-chief at ReadWrite, a technology news site. You're probably going to remind him that he was managing editor at Valleywag, Gawker Media's Silicon Valley gossip rag. He lives in San Francisco with his husband and Ramona the Love Terrier, whom you should follow on Instagram.

corporate governanceelon musktwitterparag agrawalpowerbulletins
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