The late-Sunday announcement capped a whirlwind week. Mr. Musk’s 9.2% stake in Twitter was made public final Monday, plans for him to hitch the board have been introduced Tuesday, and he spent a lot of the weekend tweeting criticisms, recommendations and obvious jokes concerning the firm.
Mr. Agrawal mentioned in a message posted to Twitter that he and the board have been enthusiastic about collaborating with Mr. Musk, and believed that having him as a fiduciary of the corporate, the place he “has to behave in the most effective pursuits of the corporate and all our shareholders, was the most effective path ahead.” Mr. Musk’s appointment was to take impact on Saturday, the Twitter CEO wrote, “however Elon shared that very same morning that he’ll not be becoming a member of the board.”
Mr. Agrawal didn’t present a motive for Mr. Musk’s determination. “I consider that is for the most effective,” he mentioned. “We now have and can at all times worth enter from our shareholders whether or not they’re on our Board or not. Elon is our greatest shareholder and we’ll stay open to his enter.”
The Tesla Inc. CEO didn’t reply to a request for remark late Sunday. He tweeted a “face with hand over mouth” emoji after Mr. Agrawal’s tweet.
Shares of Twitter fell 0.5% in current premarket buying and selling following the announcement, paring earlier declines of about 8% and pointing to doable losses for the inventory when the market opens Monday in New York. That might undo a few of the positive factors the corporate logged final week after the information of Mr. Musk’s stake. Final week, Twitter climbed 18%, marking its finest weekly efficiency since February 2021 and one among its finest weeks on document.
In current premarket buying and selling Monday, shares of Tesla pulled again 3.5%.
Mr. Musk, the world’s richest particular person, is understood for his unpredictable habits in addition to his enterprise acumen. His involvement in Twitter had already offered an uncommon problem in addition to a doable alternative for Mr. Agrawal, simply months into his tenure as CEO, and the corporate mentioned that it had requested him to hitch its board. Now, with Mr. Musk exercising his affect from the skin, the dynamics may very well be much more difficult.
“There will likely be distractions forward, however our targets and priorities stay unchanged,” Mr. Agrawal wrote. “The choices we make and the way we execute is in our palms, nobody else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and keep targeted on the work and what we’re constructing.”
A number of Twitter workers posted their reactions to Mr. Agrawal’s announcement on Sunday, with some expressing exhaustion concerning the roller-coaster scenario since Mr. Musk disclosed his stake within the firm.
“The drama that retains on giving,” one Twitter worker tweeted Sunday night. One other merely tweeted a photograph of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants mendacity face flat on the ground.
Mr. Musk had tweeted about Twitter all through the weekend. He requested his 81 million followers in the event that they thought that Twitter was dying and identified that a number of prime Twitter accounts, together with these of artists Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, not often tweet.
Different tweets appeared much less severe.
“Delete the w in twitter?” Mr. Musk requested his Twitter followers in a ballot.
A lot of the provocative tweets appeared to return after Mr. Musk determined to not be a part of the board. His weekend string of tweets about Twitter began round 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday.
Within the weekend tweets, Mr. Musk mentioned Twitter Blue ought to ban advertisements, decrease its $2.99-a-month value and take into account accepting dogecoin cryptocurrency as cost for the subscription service. He additionally mentioned subscribers ought to get an authentication test mark.
It was unclear how severe Mr. Musk was about his recommendations. Though Mr. Musk is understood for inflicting controversy on Twitter, it isn’t widespread for main shareholders who’ve been invited to an organization’s board to name out the corporate so publicly.
A self-described “free speech absolutist,” Mr. Musk has ceaselessly inspired the platform to permit a spread of opinions.
Mr. Musk has since deleted a number of of the tweets he posted over the weekend.
Mr. Musk’s tweets have gotten the billionaire into authorized troubles prior to now. In September 2018, Mr. Musk and Tesla entered right into a settlement settlement with the Securities and Change Fee following a security-fraud cost introduced by the SEC in opposition to him.
Since final 12 months, Twitter has been working towards reaching publicly acknowledged targets of 315 million day by day customers and $7.5 billion in annual income by the tip of 2023. The corporate hit $5.08 billion in income on the finish of final 12 months, up 37% from the earlier 12 months, whereas its person base elevated 13% to about 217 million day by day customers. If Twitter can preserve that tempo by means of the tip of 2023, it could exceed its income goal however miss the mark for enlarging its person base.
Shares of Twitter have fallen greater than 25% over the previous six months, whereas the NYSE Composite Index has gained greater than 1% over the identical interval.
Mr. Agrawal took over as Twitter chief govt from co-founder Jack Dorsey in November. Mr. Agrawal has been on the firm for greater than a decade, beginning as a software program engineer and serving as the corporate’s chief know-how officer from 2017 till his promotion to the highest function.
Shortly after taking on as CEO, Mr. Agrawal shuffled the corporate’s management and enacted a tradition of shifting shortly and decisively. Since his arrival, the corporate has pushed additional into supporting blockchain and NFT applied sciences.
Twitter on Wednesday mentioned it was growing a characteristic that might permit customers to edit tweets after they’re posted. The announcement got here after Mr. Musk polled his followers asking in the event that they needed the edit characteristic.
—Caitlin McCabe contributed to this text.
Supply: Live Mint